Chapter One - Blog Date 042306

New News and Old News Cedar Rapids 18April05 0635

After a quick pass through the Starbucks drive-up for a grande Americano, Calhoun pulled on to the southbound entrance ramp of I-380 at Olde Coventry Road for his commute to the office on the East side of Iowa City. He had threatened himself repeatedly over the last five years to make a move closer to work, but the family compound that he had inherited from his folks was simply too much a part of him to let go. To call it a compound was a bit of a stretch, but there were two and a half wooded acres and one out-building that was perfect housing for the toys and equipment of his varied intrests. Any of the alternatives that he had seen near Iowa City not only had lousy economic outcomes, but they also were without any intrinsic appeal.

As he came up to cruising speed for the twenty-five minute ride south, Calhoun also gave a thought to lobbying his boss for an increased mileage allowance. The Ford Expedition that he had bought last year was a nice ride, but with his frequent visits to the Big K Pit Stop, and the ever-increasing price of gasoline, he was developing a new appreciation for the expense reimbursement provisions of his employment contract.

He thought for a moment of giving his boss in suburban Chicago a call to make his case for the increase, but decided that it may be a little too early to needle Raymond Marshall on a Saturday morning. Marshall was a not a man without humor, but Calhoun doubted if a discussion of mileage rates would be well-received at this hour. Maybe he would make the call after he had had a chance to review the email from California and could have real business to add to the conversation.

Calhoun remembered his first call from Marshall three years before. Calhoun had been with the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation (IDCI) for about ten years at that point. He had arrived at the IDCI after having taken an early retirement as a Lt. Colonel from the Air Force when it became apparent that future promotion in the Service was not to be. He had crossed swords, figuritively, with one too many generals and was facing a future of endless paper- pushing which was simply too depressing for him to contemplate.

He had liked the thought of a return to Iowa and the familiar territory of his youth. An old high school classmate with whom he had shared a few drinks at their 20 year reunion and who had risen to some kind of mucky-muck status in Des Moines politics had suggested that he consider the IDCI. The IDCI was looking for military-trained personnel to staff a new division to monitor the expanding gambling industry in the state. A match was made and Calhoun eventually became the lead investigator for the IDCI on the operators and money sources of the state's casinos and tracks.

Then came 9-11. Enron. Sarbannes-Oxley. Anti-money laundering. The Patriot Act. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Almost overnight, Calhoun began working with so many Federal agents and agencies that nights spent checking out the losers on the Mississippi Belle became a thing of the past. Tracking money flow, off shore accounting, security transactions and electronic transmissions took Calhoun into a whole new circle of modern sleuths. He was good at it, and when Raymond Marshall was named to head the Federal Department of Justice's National Securities Task Force (NSTF), Calhoun was his choice to lead the Midwest team.

That first call was really not an offer. Although agents of his position normally have some say in their own transfers, Calhoun's superior at the IDCI made it immediately clear that he was from thereon on assignment to the NSTF. The transfer paperwork had already been signed. Good luck. Nice to have known you.

As it had turned out, the NSTF had been a good fit for Calhoun. The other field agents were all bright, dedicated people who had yet to be seriously infected by the malaise of Federal bureaucratic laziness. Raymond Marshall spent most of his time in either New York, Chicago or San Francisco and kept his staff away from the Washington Beltway where progress was most often measured in nanometers.

Calhoun slowed as he approached the clover-leaf intersection with I-80 just West of Coralville. He exited on the East-bound ramp behind two 18-wheelers. He was always amazed at the truck traffic on I-80. The Main Street of The Midwest. "What town would want this many trucks on Main Street?" he asked himself.

He came back up to speed for this short leg of his commute over to Dodge Street. His thoughts returned to Melanie McDermott. And to the email. He mentally tried to timeline the sequence of Carmondii's email with the company's initial public offering (IPO), the divorce, Melanie's return to Iowa, and the patent infringement case that Carmondii's comapny, Cyberware, Inc., had won at least two years ago. Cyberware had a current market value of nearly five billion dollars, and according to Calhoun's memory, Melanie McDermott and Anthony Carmondii still contolled nearly sixty-five percent of the corporation. Calhoun thought, "A billion here and a billion there. Pretty soon, you're talking about REAL money. I wonder how iron-clad that divorce decree really is?"

Calhoun pulled off I-80 at the Dodge Street-Highway 1 exit, turned North for a half mile and entered the business park on the Northeast corner of the intersection of the state highway and the interstate. He parked in front of an unmarked building known to the locals as, " Federales."