You said it. In a previous life I was a contractor for a company doing work for the government. They decided they didn't like paying my contractor fee so they hired a (much younger) recent college grad to take over the project I was running, and canceled my contract (which I understood happens). I turned in my badge and left. About six months later my former boss calls me out of the blue and asks me to come back and work on the same project. The person they hired (no longer employed there) screwed it up so bad the sponsor was going to pull the project for lack of performance. I wrote them a proposal with double my fee, request for my own workspace in a secure area, and time from a hardware systems analyst and software engineer. Also the provision that I would only work on this project and when it was done so was I. They bought it without a whisper of protest. Turns out I could have probably gotten three times my contractor fee if I wanted (but even I'm not that greedy). The job got done and the company kept its business with the sponsor. They wanted me to stay on but I had other things to do. Still, they gave me a nice bonus for pulling them out of the fire. So, yes, you get what you pay for.
Nice story.