There’s nothing in the fluid-processing area but a control room and a few miles of piping systems, but we can go see it if you’d like.”
“That’s okay,” Stafford said, still assimilating the idea of Monster piss. “Does every DRMO have one of these derail machines?”
“No, which is why we tend to get a lot of the military equipment that’s still serviceable.” Stafford nodded. “Right,” he said. “What’s in the rest of the warehouses?”
“More stuff,” Carson replied. “If the trucks stopped coming today, we’d have a six-month workload here.”
“Okay, thanks for the tour. Let’s go get something to eat, and I’ll ten you what this is all about.” Sort of, he reminded himself silently.
They took their sandwiches to a table at the back of the officers club’s tiny dining room. Carson noticed that Stafford was pretty adept with his one good arm.
“As I said, most of Fort Gillem is in cadre status,” he explained.
“That’s Army speak for being shut down and tffc waiting hopefully for the next war.” He was trying hard not to appear anxious. There is no way they could know about the cylinder, he kept telling himself. That just happened. Or about Lambry. No way in hell.
Keep cool. Show him that you’re interested in why he’s here, but that, whatever it is, it does not affect you personally.
Stafford had started in on his sandwich, eating it awkwardly with one hand. Carson waited for a moment and then did the same, although he had still not recovered his appetite after Friday night. The big man across the table was obviously hungry and dedicated to doing something about it. The dining room was almost empty, with only a few other civil servants gossiping about the latest base c!6sings and layoffs in the Defense Department.
Stafford finished his sandwich quickly, keeping his right hand out of sight below the table. “Okay,” he said, wiping his mouth with a clutch of paper napkins. “You know the difference between the DIS and the DCIS?”
“Uh—” -
Stafford cut him off. “DIS, the Defense Investigative Service, does security clearance background checks on military and civilian employees,of the Department of Defense. The DOS, that’s the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, investigates cases of fraud against the government. One’s admin, one’s criminal work. I’m a senior investigator with the DCIS. The Defense Logistics Agency, which owns all the DRMOs, called us with a problem. They think someone has been rigging the auctions.”
Shit, Carson thought. It is the auction scam. He forced his face into an expression of mild surprise. “Rigging the auctions?” he said. “I’m surprised. You saw that stuff. What’s to rig?”
Stafford gave him a cool look. “Actually, I didn’t. Not the stuff we’re talking about here. I saw the bedpans and pipe-rack stuff. The DLA is talking about the high-priced items. Avionics components. Electronic repair parts. Non demil but high-value radar and communication equipment. Satellite transponders. The gold foil in magnetron power amplifiers. Not materials that’re hazardous, but items that have value in a secondary market. Like those radar components the FA A depends on.”
Carson was suddenly paying close attention. Stafford’s casual use of the word nondemil indicated he might know more about the DRMO business than he had let on. He put the remains of his own sandwich down and wiped his hands, trying not to look at Stafford. He had been wondering when this day would come ever since he had taken over the scam. He would have to very careful here.
“The auction process is pretty straightforward,” Carson said. “I don’t know how it could be rigged. I mean, it’s a regular call auction. The bids are called right there on the floor. If the auctioneer gave it to someone else, the rest of the bidders would protest.”
“DLA thinks this scam has been going on in the sealed bid system,” Stafford said, still looking at him.
“But who would gain from that?” Carson responded, shaking his head. ‘ “Maybe way back when, but the way it works now, if there is a sealed bid, the auctioneer starts with that bid amount. If he gets no takers from the floor, then by definition, that’s the winning bid.”
Stafford nodded patiently. “Way I understand it,” he said, “DLA thinks the scam comes after that. They think the so-called winning bid is altered, after the fact, by someone inside the process, so that the winning bidder doesn’t pay what he said he would. That way he gets a really good deal. Anyhow, that’s the theory. That’s what I’ve come down here for. I want to make a reality check. I want to do an audit on the paper trail of some high-value, nondemil stuff that’s been to auction. I want to know what was sold, to whom, and how much the winning bid was supposed to be, and then I want to see proof that that’s what the guy paid for it.”
Carson nodded slowly, keeping his expression neutral as he asked the all-important question. “Why the Atlanta DRMO, specifically?”
Stafford seemed to have an answer ready for that one.
“Because you’re one of the bigger ones, with a good-sized monetary volume. And you get a large spectrum of surplus stuff coming from the whole Southeast.” Then he smiled disarmingly. “And because I’ve never been to Atlanta.”
Carson managed a laugh at that. To a civil servant, the last reason rang true. He thought about it for a minute. DLA was getting close. There certainly was a scam running, but they were not quite correct about how it worked. But if this was all that Stafford pulled the string on, there were enough cutouts in place to keep Carson reasonably safe. On the auction scam, anyway. The cylinder was something else. Not to mention the little matter of Lam bry’s death.
“Not a problem,” Carson said. “Although it might be tough to get the proof on how much the winning bidders actually paid, because they don’t pay us. They do for the “flea-market stuff, but for the high-value items, they pay the local Defense Contracts Administrations Office.
You’ll have to talk to them and the people who actually bought the stuff.” He shook his head. “But given that outside loop, I’m still not sure how anyone could scam the system. Or why. What kicked this off?”
Stafford finished his coffee. “To tell the truth, I’m not sure what it was. They often don’t tell the field investigator, because they want us to look at a problem with a clear filter. If I knew what alerted DLA, I might restrict my investigation to just that and miss a bigger picture.
You know, go out and try to prove them right. This way, I take a fresh look at the process, and see if all the numbers jibe. If they do, I go home. If they don’t, we’ll either work it or call in the FBI.”
Carson nodded again. The FBI. The last thing he needed right now was that bunch of anals poking around the DRMO. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go see if that car’s ready. Then we’ll find you a hotel. You want to stay out here in the sticks or go downtown?”
At five-thirty that afternoon, Carson closed up his office. After they left the officers club, he’d taken Stafford back — to the admin building, where the secretary had his temporary office ready. There’d been the usual hassle about the car, but eventually the motor pool turned loose a General Services Administration Crown Vie.
Stafford had elected to stay in downtown Atlanta at the Peach tree Center. Carson had his secretary dump binders of the relevant. rules and procedures for DRMO sales on Stafford’s desk, along with the auction reports for the past six months and a personnel roster. Stafford had left at three-thirty to check in at his hotel, and he said he’d be back at eight-thirty the next morning. An hour later, the rest of the staff had left for the day, Demil’s backload had been cleared, so there I was no evening shift. The Monster was quiet. Digesting, no doubt.