“Ah, Cooper, you're back,” said Captain Schaeffer, interrupting my thoughts, his head peering around the edge of the door. “What are you doing?”
“Sir,” I replied. “The report on the death of Dr. Tanaka. I'll send it over in about half an hour.”
“Forget about it for the moment. I'm afraid you have some visitors. I did warn you…”
Warned me? What about?
The two men swept into the room like a couple of big cats released from their cage, circling the space in front of my desk, ready to eat. One was Caucasian; his buddy, Asian. Both were in plainclothes. Actually, there was nothing plain about their clothes. Their suits were possibly Italian and improbably expensive, and they carried themselves a little like spooks, but far more like stockbrokers with a pitbull cross. I recognized their manner immediately. I was getting a visit from the most feared government department in D.C.: the General Accounting Office.
Schaeffer closed the door. I pictured a steel bolt slamming home. Escape was futile. “What can I do for you gentlemen?” I asked.
They flipped their credentials at me and then glanced around for something to sit on. The room was empty except for my desk and a faded color photo of our last President stuck with tape to the wall behind me. If they wanted to sit, they had the choice of the floor or my desk. Both chose to hang a cheek off the latter. I leaned back in my chair to get out of their personal space, or rather to get them out of mine.
“Don't think much of your decorator,” said the white guy.
“I'm living in it for a while before I renovate,” I said. “You guys got names?”
“De Silver,” said one.
“Wu,” his partner said. “We've had our eye on you, Cooper.” They were playing Good Accountant Bad Accountant.
“Really, which one are you sharing?” I asked.
“Watch your mouth, Special Agent. We can make this pleasant or we can spoil your day. Your choice.”
“You're too late,” I said. “It's already curdled.”
Wu slapped down a piece of paper on the desk in front of my keyboard. I leaned forward to get a closer look. It was DD Form 1351-2. Receipts were attached.
“That yours, Cooper?”
“Looks like.” I glanced over the figures. “Problem? Didn't I carry the one?”
“We sent you a priority e-mail about this and the system told us you never opened it.”
“Right, the e-mail. I filed it.” It was a half-truth. I still hadn't emptied the trash.
De Silver took a notebook out of his inside jacket pocket and opened it. “You went to a Sea Breeze Aquarium three weeks ago?”
“Correct,” I said.
“You got a receipt for a cab ride there that cost thirty-five bucks. Seems the return journey cost just ten.”
“And?”
“Why the discrepancy?”
“So this is about twenty-five bucks?”
“It's not just the twenty-five dollars, Cooper,” said De Silver.
“No, then what is it about?” Actually, I was anxious to know because, among the three of us, we'd already blown more than that in lost productivity.
“It's about procedure, systems, accountability,” Wu informed me. “You haven't answered the question.”
“Which one? There've been a few.”
“Were you on DoD business the entire time you were in that cab?”
I was about to answer when Wu said, “We've red-flagged you, Cooper. We're going to go over every receipt you've entered for the last six months. And the paperwork had better be in proper order.”
“So, you want to tell us about the cab ride?” De Silver again.
I can only take so much bureaucracy in one hit and I was starting to overdose. “There's nothing to tell. Stevie Wonder drove me out. A homing pigeon brought me back.”
One of them snorted.
“Your expenses will get reimbursed this time, Major. But know you're on our watch list.” So that's what this was all about. They just wanted to let the new kid on the block — me — know who was boss.
“Sure. Thanks,” I said with my best have-a-nice-day smile as they snatched back the 1351-2 and moved toward the door. “And, guys — no matter what everyone else around here says, you're doing a great job. Keep it up.”
Wu and De Silver turned and glared. They weren't used to receiving a “ fuck-you,” no matter how it was couched. The GAO had a problem. They were worried that there was another of those Defense-procured $7600 coffeepots out there, or a $9000 wrench worth a buck fifty, ready to be thrown into their works.
Schaeffer's head appeared around the door again seconds after they left. I wondered whether he'd had a glass to the wall. “You want to fill me in on Japan?” he said. “Now's a good time.”
He disappeared. I gathered I was to follow.
“I warned you about the GAO, Cooper,” he said over his shoulder.
“Yes, sir, you did.”
“What's the upshot?” he asked.
“Don't hurry back, I think is the lesson, sir.”
“Good advice,” he said.
I have no idea if he knew what I was talking about. In the six months I'd been in Chip Schaeffer's section, I'd learned that you could say just about anything as long as you said it nice. We walked past a number of offices, all occupied with personnel hunched over paperwork. I wondered if they were working on cases or sentence construction, and if, like me, they were on probation. I noticed they all glanced up when we walked past — not much happens around here. I also noticed they all sat facing their doors. They reminded me of moray eels in their holes. The area was gloomy, the dour atmosphere accentuated by the extensive use of overhead fluorescent tubes, most of them dusty. We were in D-ring, the hall that, colonlike, runs right through the center of the complex. This meant we had zero natural light. In fact, our offices had very little of anything in the way of staff-friendly amenities, an indication, I believed, of the department's true place in the pecking order. By comparison, I'd heard the GAO had a wet bar and sauna in theirs.
Captain Schaeffer's box was twice the size of mine, though also windowless. I finally understood why he was so keen on the fish tank. It bubbled away happily in one corner, lit up like a Tokyo shopping center. I counted two clown fish plus a couple of arrivals that had been added since my trip to the Sea Breeze, and saw that the octopus was still throttling the boat. I didn't see any sharks.
Schaeffer's desk was littered with paperwork. The wall behind his chair was a shrine to the heavyweights of D.C. There was a picture of the current President, flanked by a snap of the Secretary of Defense. Between and below the two men hung a photo of the Chief of Naval Operations, a woman. She smiled like she had something going with the other two.
“So, this scientist. What happened? Give me the bottom line.”
“Sir, Tanaka had been drinking. He went out on deck, presumably to get some air. Somehow, for reasons that may never be established on account of there being no witnesses, he ended up in the near-freezing water where he was eaten by a shark.” I neglected to add that this was one of the rare instances where the sashimi actually got even.
“Just as the preliminary from the Tokyo Police had it figured.” Schaeffer nodded. “So you're done with the case?”
“Pretty much, Captain. Got a few procedural aspects to clear up.” This was me, playing for time. It would hardly do for the department supposedly overseeing matters of procedure to be seen bucking it. What I wanted was time to check up on Professor Boyle and his employer, Moreton Genetics, before being redeployed in the war on grammar. Something about the guy troubled me, besides the odd Tupperware haircut.