There is no phantom employee anywhere in this case.

What DEG was selling, in addition to grounds maintenance, was an impression.

The federal market is enormous and opaque and slow, and there is an entire economy of people who will tell a small company that they can help it get inside.

Some of them can.

Most of them are selling proximity, and proximity is unfalsifiable, and that is why it sells.

What Christian had — and what almost nobody selling proximity actually has — was a wife with a warrant.