LITMIR.BIZ

       5

      Emma caught her flight to Seattle out of Dulles International Airport. She chose this airport not only so she could fly with Christine and the orchestra but also because from Dulles you could get a nonstop flight to Seattle. DeMarco didn’t like flying out of Dulles because the airport was thirty miles from his house. Reagan National, on the other hand, was just a ten-minute cab ride away. He would have to change planes in Chicago and his flight would take an hour longer than Emma’s, but if you added up total travel time, door-to-door travel time, his arithmetic said he was making the wiser choice.

      He didn’t.

      His flight boarded right on schedule at nine a.m. then sat on the runway for two hours awaiting the installation of some malfunctioning part. DeMarco didn’t know anything about airplanes but when the pilot explained the purpose of the part, it didn’t sound terribly significant – like it was the redundant backup gizmo to the backup gizmo, the aeronautical equivalent of the seat belt indicator in your car not working.

      Naturally, since his flight left Washington two hours behind schedule, he missed his connecting flight in Chicago and arrived in Seattle at three a.m. instead of five that evening as originally planned. He then had to drive another hour to reach Bremerton. Consequently he was tired and not in the best of moods the next day as he and Emma waited for Dave Whitfield, Frank Hathaway’s nephew.

      Whitfield had agreed to meet them in the bar of the motel where DeMarco was staying, a place that overlooked a quiet, tree-lined inlet called Oyster Bay. Emma was staying in a much more expensive establishment in Seattle with Christine. While they waited for Whitfield, Emma informed DeMarco that her trip from the East Coast had been delightful: an upgrade to first class, a good movie, and nothing but tailwinds all the way. Emma annoyed him.

      Dave Whitfield entered the bar as Emma was talking. Frank Hathaway had referred to his nephew as a ‘kid’ but Whitfield appeared to be in his late thirties, a kid only from Hathaway’s perspective. He was a tall, loose-jointed man; his hair was wispy blond and already fleeing his head; and he wore wire-rim glasses with square frames over intense brown eyes.

      Whitfield was impressed with DeMarco’s congressional identification. He was impressed – but he wasn’t happy. ‘Man, I can’t believe you’re talking to me,’ he said. ‘I mean I didn’t want this to happen. I just thought my uncle would, you know, call a few people.’

      ‘Your uncle is the Secretary of the Navy,’ DeMarco said.

      ‘Yeah, I know, but sheesh. I could get in trouble for this. You guys should be talking to shipyard management, not me.’

      ‘Relax, Dave,’ Emma said. ‘We just want a little background information from you so that when we do talk to management we’ll have something specific to ask. We won’t even mention your name.’ Before Whitfield could say anything else, Emma said, ‘Would you like a beer?’

      ‘Yeah, sure, I guess,’ Whitfield said, surprised that a government investigator would offer him a drink.

      After Whitfield had gotten his beer, Emma eased him along by saying, ‘Why don’t you tell us what you do. Let’s start there.’

      ‘I’m an instructor,’ Whitfield said. ‘I—’

      ‘Your uncle said you were an engineer,’ DeMarco said.

      ‘I am. I’m a nuclear engineer. And I’m an instructor. Basically what I do is teach the new engineers how the reactor plants in the ships work.’

      ‘That’s good,’ Emma said. ‘So now why don’t you tell us about these concerns you have.’ Emma kept speaking to Whitfield in this low, soothing voice, as if he was some skittish, balding horse. DeMarco found her talking this way unnatural; Emma rarely tried to soothe.

      ‘Okay,’ Whitfield said, ‘because somebody needs to look into this thing. Nobody at the shipyard believes me.’

      ‘So what’s the problem?’ DeMarco said impatiently.

      ‘It’s these two guys I used to work with. They worked at the shipyard about twenty-five years and then took an early out – meaning they retired when they were fifty-two or fifty-three instead of fifty-five. People don’t normally do that because they lose a percentage of their retirement pay. Anyway, as soon as they retired, they were hired by this company to do a study on how we train our engineers. For some jobs, the training takes about two years.’

      ‘Two years!’ DeMarco said.

      ‘We’re talking about reactor plants,’ Whitfield said, glaring at DeMarco. ‘We don’t let some kid right out of college run around a nuclear submarine unless he knows what he’s doing. Anyway, the company these guys went to work for told the navy – I don’t know who – that they could figure out a way to complete the training in half the time for half the cost. Sounds like total bullshit to me, but somebody bought their story.’

      In other words, DeMarco was thinking, this company had been hired to figure out a way to do Whitfield’s job better than he was doing it, meaning Whitfield was probably more than a little biased.

      ‘But the thing is,’ Whitfield said, ‘these two guys are a couple of losers.’

      ‘Are you saying they’re not qualified to do this study, and you think this is fraudulent?’ Emma said.

      ‘No,’ Whitfield said. ‘They’re qualified, I guess. They’re ex-navy, they were reactor operators on subs, and like I said they worked in the shipyard for more than twenty years. So on paper, they’re qualified. But they’re just … I don’t know. Incompetent. Before they retired they were always in trouble for something, not paying attention to details, doing sloppy work, not showing up on time. Like I said, losers. It’s hard to believe somebody would hire them.’

      ‘I’m confused, Dave,’ Emma said. ‘What exactly is it that you think they’re doing that’s illegal.’

      ‘I’m not sure.’

      ‘What!’ DeMarco said.

      ‘Go on, Dave,’ Emma said, giving DeMarco a settle-down look.

      ‘You see,’ Whitfield said, ‘all of a sudden these guys have got gobs of money. One of them just bought a new fishing boat and the other guy, I heard him talking about getting a home-entertainment system that’s worth ten grand. And one day I asked one of them how much he was getting paid working for this company. He beats around the bush for a while, but he finally tells me he’s getting about twice what he used to make working for the government.’

      ‘So that’s it?’ DeMarco said. ‘You don’t think these two guys oughta be doing this study and they’re making more money than you.’

      ‘No, damn it, that’s not what I’m saying,’ Whitfield snapped. ‘I’m saying there’s something funny going on here. These guys just shouldn’t be getting all this money for what they’re doing. Something’s wrong. And that’s not all.’

      ‘Yeah?’ DeMarco said. ‘What else is there?’

      ‘They don’t act like they’re reviewing our training program. They ought to be gathering data on class sizes and training costs and reviewing curriculums, that kinda thing. But they

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