Yet Forrest didn't even have to provide employees to get into the contract. Instead, DAC managers assigned a handful of applicants to her. All she had to do was pay their checks and provide their benefits, and MIA would effectively reimburse her a 142 percent markup.

In the first year, Forrest contributed none of the seven DAC employees working for her. In later years, she complained that she didn't have a say in who worked for her.

To date, Forrest Construction Management has been paid $5.8 million, its share of DAC's fees.

A LIMITED ROLE
Local knowledge is called partner's principal asset

Yet records show that Forrest's role has been limited, at best.

"The personal involvement of Linda Forrest with DAC is limited to her involvement in the Joint Venture Board meetings and her involvement in the administration of her employees, " DAC program manager Mark Massman wrote in response to a Herald question.

"I have no records of Linda Forrest being personally involved in DAC work products or in billing directly to the project."

Massman said that Forrest's prime asset was her knowledge of local job candidates and subcontractors, which out-of-town partners lacked, and that she later helped find half a dozen job candidates for a variety of positions at DAC.

Those limited duties left her plenty of time to pursue other construction projects, though DAC was her prime money flow. She operated her business from modest office quarters on Northwest 78th Street, paying just $380 a month in rent.

Still, she ran deeply into debt.

Early on, a chunk of her airport profits went to Richard Clark's firm. In January 1993, one month after his brother seconded the motion to hire DAC, Clark's Airport Information signed an agreement with Forrest Construction.

His firm would get 7 percent of her total airport revenue, "with the consultant's primary duties being to assist Forrest in marketing its services and obtaining maximum public relations value from the project, " the contract says. He would introduce her to local decision makers.

Clark's company was actually dissolved at the time. The contract said it would reactivate to collect checks from Forrest - and noted that Airport Information had "already fulfilled" most of its duties when it signed the agreement.

Clark himself did not sign the agreement. His partner, Ralph Rocheteau, a former assistant county attorney with political pull of his own, did. Rocheteau did not join Clark in the later lawsuit. Now, he says Clark did nothing to earn his money. "He didn't do crap for her, " Rocheteau said. "He did nothing."

Forrest agreed. "Richard Clark never introduced me to anyone, " she wrote. Clark's current attorney and partner, Michael Getelman, disagreed. "We did do public relations and we did do consulting work. We gave her the knowledge of how to weave her way." The contract was to last one year, but the parties agreed to extend it until 1997, after Clark guaranteed two lines of credit for Forrest totaling $80,000.

Clark's lawsuit says Forrest paid his firm $71,425 and still owes $163,968, including interest.

Even with the steady flow of money from the airport, Forrest couldn't pay her bills, saying she hit hurdles in other construction jobs that delayed payments to her company. "Things back up, " she testified in her company's bankruptcy case. "You pay Peter or you don't pay Paul." She also had problems at DAC.