The items on the fax had been carefully grouped, probably by Luisa or Jane, who were the most structured thinkers among my friends. The first heading was International and included a long list of stories about events on other continents: armed insurgencies in the Middle East, political turmoil in Eastern Europe, and trade tensions among Asian nations. I was fairly confident that none of these stories had inspired Dahlia’s fateful call to me and had skimmed through this list rapidly in the car.

The next heading was National/Politics, and I’d skimmed through that section rapidly as well, focusing my attention on the category labeled Business, thinking that it would be the most likely to yield useful information. I looked over the stories in this category again, and I even pulled up a few related articles on the Internet, but nothing seemed connected to the mess I’d found myself in.

A quick visual check showed me that Peter was still on the phone, so for lack of anything better to do I turned back to the stories grouped under National/Politics to give them more careful consideration, typing relevant keywords into the search bar. But no matter how I tried, I couldn’t figure out why Dahlia would want to tell me about trends in student test scores, the death of a famed civil rights leader, drug use in suburban America, or Congressional debate regarding proposed health-care legislation. It seemed like Luisa really had had to watch those vile blowhards on Fox News for no good reason.

The final item on the list was about the progress of a new appropriations bill through the Senate Armed Forces committee. The futility of the entire effort made me sigh as I typed in “Senate Armed Forces” and “appropriations” and hit enter. With another sigh, I clicked on the first article returned by the search, a link to a Washington Post article from Tuesday’s edition with the headline: Senate Armed Forces Committee Debates Appropriations Bill.

I was already halfway through the article before I realized that there was a familiar name in the very first paragraph. I returned to the beginning and read it again, more carefully this time.

The Senate Armed Forces Committee continued its debate today on the new appropriations bill. “We are confident that we will ultimately deliver a bill that provides our military with the resources it needs to protect American interests at home and abroad,” said Committee Chair Senator Philip Brisbane (R-PA).

The man in the accompanying picture looked older than he had in the one Man of the People had sent me, but it was the same guy. I wasn’t sure that I’d want to be called Flipper rather than Philip, or even Phil, but nicknames aren’t always the result of personal preference. It was easy to see how Philip could morph into Flipper after a few keg-stands.

Dahlia must have seen a clip from the press conference on the news, and, as the official keeper of Gallagher’s Rolodex, she must have known that Brisbane was in it and added things up on her own. She may even have scheduled meetings or conference calls for Gallagher, Brisbane, and Perry, although it would have been unwise of them to leave a public record of any tête-a-têtes outside of the occasional Princeton alumni event. Perhaps she’d even watched the Tiger deal unfold and recognized a similar pattern.

The article continued, nicely clearing up some other matters for me:

Senator Brisbane has been under intense pressure since Congressional Democrats launched an unexpected attack on his leadership last week, citing the unusual length of time the bill has spent in Committee as emblematic of Republican foot-dragging.

The appropriations bill has important ramifications not only for the military but for the nation’s defense industry. U.S.defense contractors, many of whom have been struggling in the current industrial climate, are eager to see this bill passed. Several of these companies have been lobbying committee members aggressively.

The article went on to identify a number of companies by name and to discuss their lobbying efforts in greater detail. Thunderbolt Industries wasn’t on the list, but it didn’t have to be. There was no need for Thunderbolt to openly lobby the Senate Committee when its CEO went “way back” with the Committee’s chairman.

Everything about the deal that hadn’t made sense before now made complete sense. Thunderbolt’s revenues were in decline and its current stock price was languishing because it had lost out on an important contract, one that Brisbane had used his position and influence to steer away from Thunderbolt in order to depress the company’s performance. As a result, Perry could do his buyout at the depressed price, not to mention win concessions from the union. Then, once the appropriations bill passed, Brisbane could steer a few fat contracts Perry’s way. Thunderbolt would flourish, and Perry could sell the company at a handsome profit, generating equally handsome returns for his investors. The previous shareholders would lose out, but I doubted Perry and his investors cared.

And I had a pretty good idea as to who some of those investors might be. I wasn’t sure how they’d managed it-probably through an intricate tangle of trusts and front companies to mask their conflicts of interest-but it wouldn’t surprise me one bit to learn that Flipper Brisbane and Glenn Gallagher both had considerable interests in the “investor group” backing Perry’s management buyout.

Meanwhile, the accelerated schedule for getting the deal done was undoubtedly a direct result of the heightened pressure the esteemed senator was under to finalize the appropriations bill. Once the bill was approved, the ways in which Thunderbolt could benefit would cause the company’s stock price to pop. If Perry didn’t get the deal done before this happened, he and his investors would lose out.

The scope of both the planning and the duplicity was breathtaking, but they’d had practice, after all. I was sure that if I did a little more research, I’d find that the Tiger buyout had followed the same pattern.

And then I realized something else. If Jake had worked on the Tiger deal, he’d had a chance to see Gallagher, Perry, and Brisbane pull their first scam. While it was unlikely that Gallagher had confided in Jake, much less cut him in on either deal, Jake must have figured out that Gallagher and his cronies were attempting a repeat performance of their first success.

This time, however, Jake had also figured out a way to get a piece of the action. Because the investment had been made during Gallagher and Annabel’s marriage, its proceeds would probably be fair game even under the most stringent of prenuptial agreements. If the investment generated the same sort of returns the Tiger investment had generated, it would mean enough money to set anyone up for life, even in the style to which Annabel was accustomed.

But neither Annabel nor Jake would be able to enjoy those proceeds if the deal didn’t go as planned.