Hemorrhage: A Novel

By Peter Budetti

Operating on American soil but controlled from Moscow, the Russian mob has inserted its agents into the highest levels of the U.S. government and assembled a criminal network of shady doctors and corrupt U.S. officials in a massive conspiracy to steal billions of medical care dollars by preying on unsuspecting patients who are left dead or maime

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Budetti
• Release date: Aug 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9781732335707

Peter Budetti

Physician, lawyer, scholar, and longtime Washington insider Dr. Peter Budetti was recruited by President Obama's Administration to modernize the government's antifraud efforts in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. As he oversaw the development of innovative systems using advanced technology to detect and prevent fraud, Dr. Budetti became known as the Healthcare Antifraud Czar. Dr. Budetti is Of Counsel to Phillips and Cohen, LLP, the nation's most successful law firm representing whistleblowers. Prior to his years at CMS, Dr. Budetti held senior positions in government and academe. He is the author of numerous articles published in medical and public health journals as well as three novels: Deadly Bargain, Hemorrhage, and Resuscitated. Dr. Budetti received his undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame, his medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and his law degree from the University of California Berkeley Law (Boalt Hall). He trained and was board-certified in pediatrics and is a member of the California and District of Columbia Bars. He is married, has two grown children, seven grandchildren, and a Pekingese-mix doggy. Dr. Budetti and his wife live in Kansas City, Missouri, and spend as much time as possible at their lakehouse in Arkansas.

Book preview

Prologue

The lanky redhead relaxed at his childhood desk in the peaceful silence of his old dormer bedroom. Complicated algorithms and bits of code floated through his mind as he savored the satisfaction of having just completed the computer program for his senior engineering thesis at Princeton. Lost in mathematical reverie he was startled back to consciousness by a penetrating shriek. He jerked up his head, his ears ringing. Was that a scream? An animal howling? He bolted from the room, running down the stairs toward the noise, then froze at what he saw: his father, fists clenched, pounding the air, standing in the hallway uttering that horrible sound. A telephone dangled on its cord.

"Dad! Dad, what is it, what happened? Will Manningham shouted, trying to break through the screams. Dad!"

Will moved to wrap his arms around his father, but the man spun from his son’s grasp, his fists now pounding against the wall. The awful sound, half scream, half cry, continued, then choked into sobs.

Just then a second young man, the perfect duplicate of Will, ran into the hallway.

Will’s identical twin, Barrett Manningham IV, stared wide-eyed at his father and brother, saying, Will! Dad! What’s going on? What’s all this about? Dad, Dad, what’s wrong, what is it?

Will grabbed the handset, put it to his ear, and asked, Who is this? What did you say to my father?

My name is Charles Addison, came the response, a flat, unapologetic voice. Assistant U.S. Attorney M. Charles Addison. I called for Mr. Barrett Manningham the Third. With whom am I speaking?

His son, Willford Manningham. What did you say to my father?

That would be for your father to tell you. I can only say that there has been a development with respect to your mother. Put Mr. Barrett Manningham back on the line, please.

Couldn’t you hear him? He can’t talk. What do you mean, something about my mother? My mother is dead, she died a couple of months ago. What do you know about my mother? Tell me what happened, what you said.

I am authorized to speak only with her husband, no other family members. If Mr. Manningham cannot continue our conversation, tell him we will be back in touch. Good day.

The dial tone buzzing in his ear, Will tossed the handset onto its cradle and turned toward his father.

The man shifted his head back and forth between Will and Barry as though he was trying to look at his sons, but he was only gazing glassy-eyed into empty space, unable to focus on them or on anything. Then he gasped and went white as the color drained out of his face. He stumbled, reaching out to steady himself on the wall. Both sons moved forward, taking his arms across their shoulders to support his limp weight.

Dad, Will said, it’s OK, Dad, we’re here. It’s OK.

The brothers held their father between them, matching bookends guiding him down the hallway to the living room, into the overstuffed leather chair that had been his habitual seat for as long as the boys could remember. Like a character from a British television show wanting to steady the nerves of someone who had just suffered a terrible fright, Barry walked to the dry bar saying, I’ll get some brandy. But when he returned with the snifter of brandy and started to hand it to his father the man’s hands were shaking so violently his son held onto the glass and lifted it to his father’s lips.

Take a sip, Dad, the sons said in chorus.

The man tipped his head back and took a few drops of the brandy, then shook his head and pushed the glass away. Barry set the drink down on an end table and sat in a straight chair alongside his father.

Will pulled up a chair on the other side, sat so his face was level with his father’s, then said, Please, Dad, what is it? Tell us what that man said. Something about Mother, what did he say? What is it? What?

Their father tried to speak but no words came, only a kind of howl. This kept up for a few seconds, and then he began a relentless weeping. Each boy took one of the man’s hands and sat still, waiting.

Will was shaking now, unable to control his terror. What could have happened to undo his father like this? What had his father heard that was so horrible?

Please, Dad, calm down, he pleaded. What was it? What’s happened? Dad, please!

Their father freed one hand, reached for the brandy and took a long drink.

Not…not cancer, he sobbed. "Not cancer."

What do you mean, not cancer? Of course it was cancer. Dr. Peskov treated her for cancer, the cancer that killed her. What are you saying?

He said…no, not true, he…Peskov…he...

The brothers said nothing, unable to grasp what their father was trying to tell them.

At last he stammered, You…you know how Peskov said…said she suffered from that miserable cancer, that her only chance of…of living… He choked on the word, inhaled deeply, then found enough voice to say, was…was chemotherapy, the chemotherapy she hated? Mother always said the chemotherapy was killing her, and…she…

The man sobbed again, his body shuddering. He buried his head in his hands.

Will watched in desperation as his father wept for another several minutes, still holding his head in his hands, shaking from side to side, gasping for breath.

At last the man looked up at his sons, his eyes vacant, his face collapsed. "She…she was right. Mother was right all along. I never listened to her, I said she was imagining it. I told her to obey the doctor, to take the treatments. But the chemotherapy did kill her. It was a lie, all a horrible lie. She never had cancer. It was all…all a fake, the whole thing, a fake. He…that Peskov…he’s a criminal, a criminal, they’ve arrested him."

Why would he do that? Will screamed. Why would he lie about what was wrong with her?

Money, he did it for the money. He…he poisoned Mother with chemotherapy, all for the money. Her, and lots of other people. That attorney, Addison, said they discovered Peskov was…making false cancer diagnoses, giving deadly treatments to people who didn’t need them, all to collect millions from their health insurance. He’s been arrested but…

Will shrank back on the chair, feeling numb. Tears filled his eyes, then ran down his cheeks in a torrent. A vision of his mother filled his mind, a beautiful, elegant woman in her late 40s, the way she had been before Will watched in agonized helplessness as the genteel lady he loved deteriorated, first losing her social graces and behaving erratically, then withdrawing from everyone, even from her husband and her treasured twin sons, until the decay consumed her.

Mother died…from the treatments, not from cancer?

Yes, said Will’s father, his voice quavering. That’s what he said. Peskov poisoned people…with chemo…

Will looked through his tears at his father and for the first time saw how the man had aged in the past year. The stress of watching his wife wither away until she died had drained him of life. The boys had come home from college to see him through the aftermath of her death, and over the past few days Will had begun to believe that their father was slowly coming to terms with the tragedy.

Now this, thought Will. It will kill him.

Will’s premonition proved all too accurate. His father was tormented by guilt, knowing that his wife would still be alive if only he had believed her instead of encouraging her to accept the deadly treatments. Barrett Manningham III would survive the discovery of his wife’s unnecessary death for but seven months.

Over the next year, Will learned more about the criminals behind his mother’s death. Federal prosecutors revealed that Peskov was part of a Russian crime ring that was running medical scams all over the country. They had caught Peskov and his phony cancer scheme, but others were out there, a ruthless network draining money and life from unknowing patients. Some victims, like Will’s mother, had private insurance, but large numbers of elderly people on Medicare were being targeted as well. Many had spent their last dollar on their share of the bills. The prosecutors said the Russian syndicate had considerable financial resources and used sophisticated computers and technologies to avoid detection. They were smart and hard to track. The prosecutors called them callous criminals with no regard for the human beings who suffered and died at their hands, or the families that were left to agonize over their loss.

Will was shocked that anyone could do things like that to innocent people. Kill them, make them suffer that way, ruin so many lives, just for the money? And there were more like Peskov out there, getting away with it? Shock turned to despair, then anger, then hatred. And finally to deep resolve. He would avenge his mother and father. He would find a way to track down the monsters behind Peskov, to stop them from hurting anyone else.

He didn’t know what he could do, but he had to try. Then the words of the indictment flashed through his brain: the Russian syndicate…used sophisticated computers and technologies to avoid detection. That was the key: computers and technologies! He could find them, stop them, put an end to these horrors.

Will Manningham had found his path.

Chapter One: Command Performance

Will Manningham pressed his microchip-encoded ID card against the sensor outside the heavy door, waited for the red indicator light to flash green, then punched his personal code into the keypad. Hearing the low ‘ka-thump’ of the deadbolt turning, he opened the door and stepped inside the dimly-lit room, signaling to FBI Special Agent Adrienne Penscal to follow him. The door swung shut behind them, sealing them in the absolute silence of an isolation chamber. Then Will flipped on the lights, stunning both of them with a surreal whiteness – the walls, ceiling and floor in the fifteen-foot-square room glistened a slick, high-gloss pure white, as dazzling as Superman’s Ice Cave. Lists, outlines, notes, arrows pointing this way and that, and a few random doodles in black, red, and green provided the only color on the polished dry-erase walls. There was no furniture except a thin white table bolted to the floor in the middle of the room. Erasable magic markers filled a small basket on the table top.

This is amazing, Will. The whole room’s a white board! A white board on steroids.

Yes, it’s terrific, he replied with a smile, pleased at having impressed the seasoned Special Agent. We call it our Collaboration Room – it seems kinda bleak and isolated at first, but after a while it works great, it’s very conducive to brainstorming, sharing ideas. Anywhere from two to five or six of us come in here to work together. Pointing to the far wall he said, For example, this is the checklist for today’s event.

Someone has drawn red lines through every item – are you sure it’s all on track?

Will stiffened his face to hide his anxiety that he might actually have taken on something too big, too complicated, then said, I sure hope so. In any case, it’s too late now to change anything.

He hesitated, not sure how to say the rest of what he was thinking. He took a breath and said, You know, uh, I really appreciate everything you did to work out the technical glitches between your FBI communications software and our network. If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be here today. Thanks, thanks much.

Happy to help. Are the big shots all coming?

Not sure yet. I can’t believe anyone would pass up the chance to witness what we’re going to see today. But this crowd’s pretty high up, they can be too full of themselves to be interested in what somebody else is doing. Pulling a sheet of paper from his coat pocket he said, Here’s the final invite list. He showed her the impressive list of names and titles, complete with thumbnail photos, all under the heading, Vetted Invitees – Newark Takedown. High Security. I’ll check everyone off once they’re inside the Command Center, then we’ll know who showed.

Sounds good. Ready?

As ready as I can be. Let’s do this. Will felt his heart pounding in his chest as they stepped out of the white room into a broad auditorium that evoked images of NASA’s Mission Control. But no one monitored space ships here – they had entered the government’s new Healthcare Fraud Command Center. Spanning the entire front wall of the room was the eye-catching highlight of the Command Center, a sixty-foot wide, ultra high-definition video display with the words "Welcome to the CMS Command Center" scrolling in enormous script across the massive screen. High-tech consoles fanned out across the room in three rows of eight, with an aisle down the middle. Each station was equipped with its own monitor and computer and a series of control switches.

One by one the invited guests found their tented namecards and took their assigned places. Feeling his heart racing as he walked toward the front of the room, Will slowed his pace to regain his composure. He ignored the stage-whispers of, Wow, isn’t this something? and I wonder how much this place cost? He refrained from stopping to deliver his usual rejoinder: Peanuts, it cost peanuts, compared with the millions stolen from Medicare every day. Not the time for a debate over the Command Center’s price tag.

He stood off to one side of the podium at the front of the room, counting the empty seats like a flight attendant. Seven empty out of twenty-four. Perfect, seventeen, they’re all here. Now he was ready.

Will was pleased that so many highly ranked officials had made it to the obscure location of the Command Center in the suburbs of Baltimore. The top-secret federal facility was hidden in plain sight in one of the hundreds of nondescript converted warehouses sprawling across an endless industrial park. A few miles away loomed the massive building that was home to the agency Will worked for, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS.

Most days, Will and his clandestine antifraud team members worked alone in the Command Center. From time to time they brought in law enforcement agents and specialized consultants to create sophisticated new software programs that could spot and block phony Medicare claims before they were paid out. During those sessions the giant screen would display as many as twelve different picture-in-picture boxes, allowing everyone in the Command Center to see high-definition images of the analysts and law enforcement officers collaborating with them from remote locations by videoconference. Other sections of the huge screen would project dashboards showing up-to-the-minute data or the latest formulas being proposed for new computer programs.

But today Will had arranged something entirely different: he would demonstrate how the Command Center could also serve as a War Room. A select group of senior federal officials would witness an FBI raid in real time, telecast live from the takedown site – if it all worked like it was supposed to. Will knew it was risky – no one had ever attempted something like this before. He wanted the visitors to be impressed watching a law enforcement action live on the big screen. Later, as usual, he would endure seeing the FBI get all the headlines for arresting a gang of criminals, but Will wasn’t interested in publicity. He wanted these influential insiders to know that he and his team had made the takedown possible. They had uncovered the scam in that very room with the Command Center’s supercomputers running their advanced fraud detection program, then fed the results to the FBI.

Will was on thin ice. If he could get this important audience worked up with a spectacular show, maybe that would get his fraud-fighting efforts the respect and support they deserved. Maybe. But if the technology failed or something else disrupted the show in front of all these muckety-mucks, he would never be able to scrape the egg off his face.

Suppressing his fears, Will scanned the audience. He glanced first at Adrienne, catching her eye and nodding. She returned the gesture with a faint smile. Then Will acknowledged the silver-haired older man wearing rimless glasses and a dark blue suit sitting next to Adrienne, her boss, FBI Division Chief, Garry Hollingshead. Across the aisle from Hollingshead Will saw his big boss, the CMS Director, Dr. Barbara Wilson. She stared at him over half-moon reading glasses with a look that said, You’d better not fuck this up and embarrass me, Manningham.

Two senior CMS officials flanked Dr. Wilson. One was Herman Michaels, the Chief Operating Officer, a notoriously controlling man who years ago had been responsible for putting into place the primitive antifraud systems Will was now replacing. Will needed the man’s support, so he tolerated hearing him often boast as if Will’s innovations were the logical outgrowth of his own earlier efforts rather than the complete repudiation that they represented. The other was Will’s immediate superior, the Deputy Administrator of CMS, a political appointee who enjoyed being in the limelight as the public face of Medicare’s fight against fraud while Will and the others did all the real work. That was just fine with Will. Let the suit give all the speeches, do all the testifying before Congress, speak at all the press conferences – Will was comfortable in his obscurity. He had a mission to fulfill, that was all that mattered to him.

Will’s eyes turned to the third CMS attendee with Dr. Wilson, a man named Greg Zachary. Zachary was an enigma to Will.

Will thought there was something peculiar about that man. He could not figure why Dr. Wilson had instructed him to put Zachary on the invitation list. The man seemed to wield a lot more power than he should for his position. At that moment Zachary turned toward Dr. Wilson and flashed a narrow, obsequious smile that flared up the ends of his thin black mustache. Then Zachary looked at Will and raised his hand in a faint wave of greeting, focusing his dark, penetrating eyes on him with an intensity that seemed incongruous with the minimal gesture.

Will nodded slightly in return, thinking that Zachary was very strange indeed.

Just then Will was distracted from Zachary by an animated, stubby woman who buttonholed him, trapping him in his corner. In her effervescent style, Edie Cullings said, Will, Will, fantastic, this is your big day. Can’t wait for the show. Call me afterward, we’ll have to chat, have to figure out how to get the most mileage out of this.

Will was not happy to see Cullings, yet another person whose presence had been imposed on him. A political appointee recruited from a prominent New York advertising firm to run the public affairs group for the Department of Health and Human Services, Cullings had pulled rank to get invited over Will’s objections. Will was leery about her because of her reputation of having a hard edge, manipulating people to do things her way. He was convinced the woman could be up to no good.

Please, Edie, no, I don’t want any publicity. We’re not ready for that.

Whatever you say, Will. Whatever. It’s your show.

She’s fucking with me, humoring me, Will thought. He would have to deal with her later.

Will looked out at the audience and began comparing the faces in the room against the thumbnail photos on his list. He was gratified that both Division Directors from the Department of Justice were present, and particularly enjoyed seeing Patrick Molloy, Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division, a friendly, gregarious man who was always willing to listen and cooperate. The other, Clarissa Nimrod, Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Division, was not one of Will’s favorites but he could not afford to snub her.

The rest of the select group included the HHS Inspector General, one high-ranking official each from the IRS and the Secret Service, two from Treasury, one from the White House, another from the Office of Management and Budget, and a gaggle of chattering Congressional staffers from the House and Senate Committees with jurisdiction over CMS and DOJ.

Success, all the principals were there, no substitutes. With all those high-ranking officials in his Command Center, the pressure was really on.

Will stepped up to the podium, tapped twice on the microphone, then began speaking.

Welcome, everyone, welcome to the CMS Command Center. We are very pleased to have such a distinguished audience for this quite special event. I particularly appreciate the sacrifices so many of you had to endure to leave Washington and make the trek out here to the Baltimore suburbs.

Will paused, wondering if his little joke would take hold, then was relieved when Patrick Molloy chortled, triggering a round of laughter and smiles around the room. Everyone but Clarissa Nimrod, Will noted. And that guy Zachary.

Please join with me in thanking Special Agent Adrienne Penscal for her valuable assistance in coordinating today’s activities. Heads turned toward Penscal, followed by brief applause that elicited a restrained nod from the Agent.

In just a few minutes you will be the first to witness an FBI takedown live. This is the culmination of many months of work by our staff here in CMS and our partners in the FBI. Right here in the Command Center we created the computer programs that identified the scams and the criminals who were responsible for committing them. Then we worked closely with law enforcement to track them down, and today you will see them brought to justice.

Will crossed his fingers, praying that the Command Center electronics would not fail at the big moment. Drawing close to the microphone he filled the room with a dramatic, "Showtime! in a voice that could have come from the master of ceremonies at a Las Vegas show. He sighed with relief as the gigantic screen came to life, the welcoming graphic fading into a picture of the front of a rundown warehouse. Images began popping into view from closed-circuit cameras of some forty men and women surrounding the building, all wearing vests with FBI" in huge letters and brandishing assault weapons. On command an armored Humvee demolished the thick front door of the warehouse in one pass. Federal Agents looking much larger than life size on the big screen ran into the building behind the monstrous vehicle. Then images inside the warehouse from helmet action cameras appeared, bouncing around as the Agents moved. Flash grenades exploded everywhere like cluster bombs. Agents blared commands through bullhorns in English, then in Russian, then English again. All over the screen people were running and shouting, some ducking down as though they were dodging bullets in a war zone.

A man bolted past the Agents, then a second man, then a woman. Two Agents tackled the first man and pinned him face-down on the concrete floor as they handcuffed him. The second man, wiping his face with a towel as though he could erase the flash from his eyes, made it through the door only to be tripped up by one Agent and handcuffed by another. The woman pounded her fist into the face of an Agent and ran toward the exit. Another Agent threw her down with a swift move and cuffed her wrists behind her back. A man and woman smashed through a window, sending shards of glass flying toward the audience on the huge screen like a scene in a 3-D IMAX show, causing several senior officials to duck in their seats. A deafening series of gunfire blasts from automatic weapons reverberated through the Command Center’s speakers as four Agents chased after the pair who had jumped through the window, firing bursts of warning shots over their heads until they stopped running.

Soon the screen displayed close-up images of the hardened faces of two dozen or more burly Eastern European men and women who were now lined up against the interior wall, grimacing in surrender. Some wore white coats and carried stethoscopes in their pockets, others were dressed in work clothes. Then the pictures switched to Agents collecting and stacking assault weapons and loading computers and file cabinets onto dollies. Several Agents wheeled the confiscated materials toward a waiting truck, while others escorted the criminals to police vans.

The action was all over in less than forty-five minutes. As the scene quieted down the Special Agent in Charge, a broad-shouldered man with military-cut short hair whose square head seemed to rest on the collar of his FBI windbreaker, climbed onto the warehouse’s loading dock to address the cameras. In classic law enforcement jargon he outlined the scam by which the perpetrators – members of a Russian gang operating in Newark – had stolen more than two hundred million dollars from the federal Medicare program. The gang pretended to operate medical clinics, he said, but it was all a fake. They stole identities, bribing or threatening immigrants from the Russian community to surrender their insurance cards and go along with the scam.

Then the Agent lowered his voice. Some real patients, he said, had the misfortune of showing up at the phony clinics without knowing what they were getting into and had received terrible medical care that injured many and led to numerous deaths. Any victims who were still alive would be referred to local hospitals and doctors under the FBI’s Victims Assistance Program, the Agent added. Will wished he could avoid hearing what was surely coming next. He shivered when the Agent described one horrible example, an unlicensed doctor who disfigured his victims by claiming their harmless moles and freckles were skin cancers which he removed crudely, leaving large scars. One poor lady, he said, had more than fifty deep pock-marked scars on her face and scalp.

Will bit the inside of his cheeks hard to stem the flow of tears threatening to run down his face as memories of his mother’s suffering surged through his mind.

The Agent concluded his brief remarks by promising long prison terms for all the alleged perpetrators, noting he was grateful for the increased penalties for fraud that had been enacted in the Affordable Care Act.

As the transmission ended, the final image of the Special Agent in Charge froze on the giant screen. The usually staid dignitaries in the Command Center jumped to their feet clapping their hands and calling out "Bravo, and Well done."

Smiling from ear to ear, Dr. Wilson walked to the podium and addressed the gathering saying, I think I speak for everyone in this room in congratulating Will Manningham on a tremendous success. This has been a shining example of our ever-improving efforts to fight health care fraud. We at CMS have a sacred trust to ensure that Medicare patients always get the medical care they need, good care, honest care. We must remember that this is not just about stopping the loss of federal money, as important as that is. It’s about the real people who are hurt by bad characters like these. I am delighted that Will and his team, working right here in the Command Center, uncovered this terrible crime that stole so much money from taxpayers and harmed so many of our Medicare beneficiaries. I have to say it was quite remarkable to be able to watch the results of their efforts today in such a dramatic fashion. From start to finish, this demonstrates what can be accomplished in our incredible new facility. And I am very pleased this has been achieved not by CMS alone, but also in cooperation with our partners in the FBI, the Department of Justice, and across the government. Well done, Will Manningham!

As another round of applause filled the Command Center a good feeling came to Will’s mind that maybe, just maybe, his mother and father could somehow see their son was doing what he had promised.

In no apparent hurry to return to their offices, the senior federal officials began milling around and chatting with one another as they took turns shaking Will’s hand and patting him on the back. All but two members of the audience joined in, as it turned out.

Will spotted Edie Cullings racing out of the main door, waving farewell and blowing kisses, then mouthing, I’ll call you, with her thumb to one ear and pinky to her lips. Will returned the wave with a tentative smile, but blew no kisses her way.

Then Will’s eyes were drawn toward a side wall where Greg Zachary stood, again staring at Will, this time making no sign of recognition, no effort to smile. Will felt an unsettling sensation wash over him. That Zachary, what a weird one. He was going to have to learn more about Greg Zachary.

Chapter Two: Exposure

Edie Cullings did contact Will the following day, but not by phone. He awoke to find a most unwelcome email from her on his BlackBerry: Mandatory meeting, 9AM, Public Affairs Conference Room, 4th Floor Humphrey Building. Will groaned. He would not be heading to his Command Center to do real work, he would have to go to downtown Washington and sit through some idiotic meeting at the Hubert H. Humphrey Building, headquarters for CMS’s parent Agency, the Department of Health and Human Services.

Being summoned to the meeting rankled Will, not only because of Edie Cullings’ peremptory style but also because he so disliked the Humphrey Building, a bizarre structure just across Independence Avenue from the stately U.S. Capitol. The eight-story mass of preformed concrete with flared window openings looked to Will like a futuristic fortress, not a fitting tribute to the progressive Senator and Vice President from Will’s home state of Minnesota as far as he was concerned. And even worse than contemplating the exterior of the Humphrey Building was finding his way around inside, maneuvering through its rat’s maze of cramped cubicles and unmarked partition-walled passageways.

But it wasn’t the building that was bothering Will. Tense and uncomfortable so far out of his element, he dreaded finding out what Edie Cullings had in store for him.

When Will entered the Great Hall of the building he paused to contemplate the quote from Hubert Humphrey etched on the vast marble wall about how the moral test of government was the way it treated the most vulnerable of its citizens. He shook his head, unsure whether his government was passing Humphrey’s moral test these days. He swiped his electronic ID card to open the gate at the plexiglass barriers, then rode an elevator to the 4th floor.

Will stepped into the Public Affairs conference room and surveyed the empty seats around a huge mahogany table. Eyeing one of the aging leather chairs that backed onto the bank of narrow windows he started to walk to the seat, then froze in place, taken aback by the sight of Edie Cullings flitting around the room in full frenzy. Her unkempt long brown hair bounced atop her head as she darted in and out of the beams of sunlight streaming through the window slits behind her. Several times she sat at the table only to spring back up to begin the manic pacing again, all the while speaking in disjointed phrases.

When Edie spotted him she blurted out, Will, Will, our big opportunity, Buddy. Big takedown, FBI Agents with guns and bulletproof vests – great visuals, lots of attention, but done and gone now, yesterday’s news. Today it’s our chance, the back-story. Press will eat it up. The government’s secret weapon, the boy genius grown up, risen from obscurity, serving his country. You, Will, you. Gotta push you out there, go public with your work, your breakthroughs. Cybersleuth Will Manningham outsmarting the Russians with unbelievably powerful computers, twenty-first Century technology! One little guy in the Medicare Agency against the frigging Russians. The Russians had no idea you were tracking them. This is the best, Will. The best.

As Will took his seat he stared at Edie and realized that her frenzied behavior reminded him of the Pekingese dog their neighbors back home in St. Paul had owned when he was a child. Like the truncated snout of that little yipping dog, Edie’s thickset, flat face looked as though it had been compressed against a window pane, and her agitated, shrill words came at him in clusters like barking from a hyperactive puppy. Edie’s entreaties didn’t resonate with Will. Quite the opposite, they unnerved him, threatening to pierce the protective cocoon he had retreated into after an unpleasant burst of fame during his college days at Princeton.

Will ran his fingers through his long, flaming red hair, sensing his face was flushing as red as the hair. He abandoned any hope of keeping his Command Center’s role in the Russian operation secret. But he still didn’t want to be the one to be seen in public.

No, no, Edie, no, he pleaded. You’re public affairs, you be the spokesperson. You give the interviews.

No can do, Will, you’re the face of this story. We need you on camera. Face time. On the networks tonight, can’t wait.

Edie’s wild assault on Will continued for another four or five minutes. He was growing unbearably anxious, her screeching voice unnerving him as she paced around the room. He was determined not to give in, this wasn’t for him. No interviews, nothing.

Then, out of the blue, Cullings stopped her frenzied circling right behind Will, resting her hands on his shoulders even as he continued shaking his head. She said softly, It’s OK, Will, it’s all OK. In one instant she had transformed from aggressive Pekingese into affectionate Cocker Spaniel, a soothing, warm presence.

Come with me, she said, her voice almost a whisper. Will stood and followed her out of the conference room into her office. She closed the door but remained standing, resuming her frenzied harangue: "OK, I understand. You don’t want to be celebrated as some heroic genius who can do anything on a computer. I got it. You had enough of that when Princeton went gangbusters with your software. But that was college, more than fifteen years ago. You’re here now, we’re professionals, we can control what happens. You’re the one who tracked down the Russian mob, you set them up for the FBI to bust. This is bigger than you, bigger than any of us. CMS takes a beating for letting people steal billions from Medicare so easily. We’re the soft underbelly of the Treasury, the biggest patsies in the world, easy prey for crooks. But now you can get the word out that we’re finally getting ahead of the criminals and protecting the people and their tax money. And we’re doing it with cutting-edge