in all its near-mystical facets.
Buchanan had grown into a six-footer with wide shoulders and sparkling
eyes, and possessing an enormous appetite for achievement. A boyhood
friend had entered politics. While Buchanan had no interest in holding
office, his lively wit and natural powers of persuasion had made him a
perfect lobbyist. He had been an instant success. His career had been
his only obsession. When he was not pushing the legislative process
Buchanan was not a comfortable man.
Sitting in the chambers of various congressmen, Buchanan would hear the
voting buzzer go off and watch the TV every member had in his or her
office. The monitor gave them the current bill up for vote, the tally
for and against and the time they had left to scurry like ants to the
floor and cast their ballot. With about five minutes remaining on a
vote, Buchanan would conclude his meeting and hurry down the corridors
looking for other members he needed to talk to, the Whip Wind-up Report
clutched in his hand. It gave the daily voting schedules, which helped
Buchanan determine where certain members might be–critical information
when you were tracking dozens of moving targets who probably didn’t
want to talk to you.
Today Buchanan had managed to grab the ear of an important senator by
riding the private underground subway to the Capitol for a floor vote.
Buchanan left the man feeling fairly confident of help. He wasn’t one
of Buchanan’s “special” people, but Buchanan was aware that you never
knew where help could come from. He didn’t care that his clients
weren’t popular or that they lacked a constituency that would hook a
member’s attention. He would just keep hammering away. The cause was
a virtuous one; the means were therefore susceptible to a lower
standard of conduct.
Buchanan’s office was sparsely furnished and lacked many of the normal
accoutrements of a busy lobbyist. Danny, as he liked to be called,
kept no computer, no diskettes, no files, no records of anything of
importance here. Paper files could be stolen, computers could be
hacked into. Telephone conversations were bugged all the time. Spies
were listening with everything from drinking glasses pressed to walls,
to the latest gadgets that a year before hadn’t even been invented but
that could suck up streams of valuable information right out of the
air. A typical organization bled confidential information the way a
torpedoed ship shed its sailors. And Buchanan had a lot to hide.
For over two decades Buchanan had been the top influence peddler of
them all. In some important ways he had laid the groundwork for
lobbying in Washington. It had evolved from highly paid lawyers dozing
at congressional hearings to a world of numbing complexity where the
stakes couldn’t possibly be higher. As a Capitol Hill hired gun, he
had successfully represented environmental polluters in battles with
the EPA, allowing them to spread death to an unsuspecting public; he
had been the lead political strategist for pharmaceutical giants who
had killed moms and their kids; next a passionate advocate for gun
makers who didn’t care if their weapons were safe; then a
behind-the-scenes player for automobile manufacturers who would rather
fight than admit they were wrong on safety issues; and finally, in the
mother of all cash cows, he had spearheaded the efforts of tobacco
companies in bloody wars with everyone. Back then Washington could not
afford to ignore him or his clients. And Buchanan had earned an
enormous fortune.
Many of the strategies he had concocted during that time had become
staples of current legislative manipulation. Years ago he had had
congressmen float bills on the House floor he knew would be defeated,
in order to rip away platforms for change later. Now that tactic was
routinely employed in Congress. Buchanan’s clients hated change. He
had constantly fought rear guard actions as those who wanted what his
clients had nipped at his heels. How many times had he avoided
outright political disaster by flooding members’ offices with letters,
propaganda, thinly veiled threats to drop financial support. “My
client will support you for reelection, Senator, because we know you’ll
do right by us. And, by the way, the contribution check is already in