Operation Damocles (5 page)

VIII

On July 20, in Indianapolis, on the local, late-evening TV talk show
Perspective,
Dr. Harrison Taylor, a local college professor of psychology, was being interviewed regarding the Eidermann incident. Nothing more had happened during the ten days following the destruction of the base, and this interview mimicked dozens of others across the United States, and perhaps hundreds around the world, ostensibly trying to make sense of the event.

In reality, as was to be expected, the media was capitalizing on it to boost viewer ratings and ratings-share. During the first week following the incident, one couldn’t turn on a TV set without seeing the same aerial video images of the destruction at Eidermann, or hearing someone, in every conceivable show format, discussing the event. The residents of Twentynine Palms were questioned about every nuance—remembered or imagined—from personal injuries to the psychological trauma to their pets, while TV news cameramen irritated the at-home viewers as usual, by panning full-frame nostril shots and eyeball views of tears rolling down the cheeks of the discomfited.

In spite of the obvious pandering by the media, the public was eager to hear each tidbit of speculation, and to hear the demands from the terrorist tape reiterated and reevaluated, again and again, from every possible perspective. There was no shortage of self-proclaimed experts willing to go on television and theorize, or make profound assertions.

Once the pool of “expert” guests dried up, newscasters resorted to interviewing each other, repeatedly analyzing the message on the tape for the viewers who had just heard it for themselves, by talking to one another in the standard formula. “Well, Wally, what do you think they meant by that?” “Well Don, I think . . . blah, blah, blah.”

“There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, from the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Base and the Eidermann storage depot, or what’s left of it, I’m Don Wallingford, JGN World News.”

The tabloid shows had had everybody on, from defense experts to flying saucer proponents and end-of-the-world religious fanatics. The daily torrent of irrationalities ranged from the sublime to the utterly stupid; from meek acceptance to hysterical, impotent rage. The initial public shock had dulled somewhat, the novelty guests were becoming rare, and in an effort to lure the channel surfers to their spot, shows were beginning to drift into the realm of the “my boyfriend left me because of differences over the terrorists’ cause” sort of thing. Perspective was of a more serious vein.

Beverly Watkins, host of the show, was a serious woman in her early thirties. She had shoulder-length blond hair, blue eyes and a voluptuous figure. She was attractive and, outwardly, the typical female-model-cum-newscaster-cum-talk-show host of the 2000s.

To her credit, she believed in what she did. Inwardly, she really wasn’t a cookie-cutter model of the stock media “info babe,” and genuinely tried to be of service to the people of her community by keeping her show on a high level, and by focusing on local and national issues that affected them. She didn’t simply try to fill up an hour’s air time.

She was also the programming manager for her station and, within certain constraints, she had a broad latitude of authority in deciding what was aired. At the moment her station manager was vacationing in Bermuda and, as usual, when he was away she was in charge.

She was saying to her guest, “The message on the tape dictates ten commandments that must happen within three weeks or, according to the terrorist, government installations and business centers along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States will be destroyed, including Washington, New York, and other major cities. We’ve had several people on the show who have talked about the scientific and technical feasibility of such a threat, and about the possibility of underlying reasons behind the threats, other than those expressed in the taped message. Though the person on the tape mentions no co-conspirators, most people think that a fair-sized organization was necessary to accomplish the enormous technological feat of constructing and putting such a weapon system in orbit. No independent organization known has such a capability. All nations with the capability of launching the weapon deny having any knowledge of it.

“Regarding the possible motives behind such an obviously expensive venture, the terrorist, or patriot, whichever label one chooses to apply, claims to be interested only in saving the United States. Can you cast any light on the psychological makeup of the man, Dr. Taylor?”

Taylor was a middle-aged, slightly heavy individual with pale eyes and horn-rimmed glasses. He wore a brown, three-piece suit which dated him as eighties-era fashionable, and played with a pipe which Watkins could see had never been smoked, and which she surmised was bought specifically for his appearance on her show. He and Watkins sat in armless swivel-chairs on an elevated coffee table set. Camera technicians operated two dolly cameras in the darkened foreground of the studio.

“Yes, Beverly. He obviously is an antisocial individual, a loner, a person with limited intelligence, possibly even a disgruntled Defense Department employee who was fired for some reason.” Taylor smiled as if he had just announced the formula for eternal youth.

Watkins studied Taylor for a moment, only long practice at maintaining a poker face preventing her from showing her surprise. “Are you serious?” she asked, her voice flat and cold.

She realized, and in the realization felt angry and used, that he was just another brainless publicity seeker who had used the issue and her show to gratify his ego. She considered for a moment, then came to a decision.

“You know, Dr. Taylor, that seems to be the standard description the law-enforcement agencies always use to describe anyone who cracks up and shoots a bunch of people; he was a
loner, antisocial, disgruntled, paranoid.
Did they get that from you, or are you aping them?”

Taylor looked at her, bewildered. “I don’t understand what you mean,” he said, adjusting the bridge of his glasses with his finger.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Watkins said, staring deadpan at him. “Aren’t those words simply labels that the authorities use when they don’t care to address the real causes? Can’t you think of something original, Dr. Taylor? What about the frustrations of life that cause someone to eventually snap? The claptrap you just spouted is the rhetoric the government uses to describe people when they are trying to color public opinion. It’s called
spin-doctoring
. They characterize everyone that disagrees with them as antisocial or extremist, or a group of people as a cult, just to bias public opinion. You’re simply mouthing those standard phrases, Dr. Taylor, and avoiding discussing specifics. Do you even have a glimmer of what a real cause might be?”

Taylor recovered his composure, and smiled condescendingly. “Beverly, it may sound like standard phrases, but someone has to be mentally maladjusted to take out their petty grievances on society by random killing. These people can appear like normal individuals on the surface, but it’s just a face they don for others. They truly are paranoid inside. They behave like normal, social individuals on the surface. Phrases like
government conspiracy, peoples’ revolution
and other holy cause jargon are keys to the deep, underlying mental aberrations of these kooks. They tend to group together, like scared vermin backed into a corner. They’re eaten up with the belief that the world is out to get them.”

Watkins gazed at Taylor a moment before responding. “First of all, they haven’t killed anyone, randomly or otherwise, Dr. Taylor. Second, they are threatening a very specific action, the destruction of the business and political centers of the nation. They haven’t used any of the phrases you’ve mentioned. The individual on the tape doesn’t mention affiliation with any group, paranoid or otherwise. Assuming there is a
group,
how can they be classified as loners, or antisocial, and what exactly do you mean by your use of the term paranoid?”

Taylor shifted in his chair, leaning forward and bringing hand gestures into play, warming to his live audience of one, and visualizing himself in the headlines tomorrow as an authority who had mesmerized his unseen TV audience with his sagacity. “Generally speaking,” he said, “people are paranoid when they falsely believe that there is a collaborative effort by others, a
conspiracy
if you will, to ‘get them’.” Taylor emphasized quotation marks in the air with the two fingers of each hand. “These people really are loners, they just pretend to be sociable in public. In other words, they generally don’t have any real friends, Beverly, they simply band together out of fear.” He smiled. “The psychosis begins to develop in childhood and gradually gets worse as the individual matures, until eventually, they can’t function within the framework of normal society at all.”

Watkins leaned back in her chair casually, studying Taylor, and said, “I take it then that you do not believe in temporary insanity,
per se
?”

Taylor’s expression grew serious and he said, guardedly, “What makes you say that?”

“In generalizing, you have just stated that anyone who commits a violent act against society has a cleverly concealed, chronic mental aberration that started in childhood. Nobody just ‘loses it’ spontaneously. Nobody is ever mad or frustrated with good reason. Let me ask you then . . . when factions of congress and local business get together and say they want to raise taxes on the American people so that they can buy a few votes with some pork-barrel project, can that be classified as a conspiracy?”

“Not really, Beverly, it’s just routine government business. We have to have taxes and government. Unfortunately, some misuse of authority goes with the territory. Human beings are corruptible.”

“So taxpayers who believe they are being robbed by a sneaky, insidious government that has become an institution of crooks that aid and abet one another for personal gain, are actually just paranoid kooks?”

Taylor’s regard was no longer condescending; he answered cautiously, “I think that’s a bit extreme, and a bit far afield, Ms. Watkins.”

“My point, Dr. Taylor, is that I don’t believe that everyone who reacts violently is suffering from a common psychosis. I believe that the only people who fit into categories are people who have been brainwashed into irrational,
mainstream
attitudes. If they all think alike, there can be no individuality or personality, and therefore they must have an implanted psychosis. That’s when I question the motives of those who implanted the psychosis, not those of the people who resist it.”

“I don’t see what this has to do with the issue,” Taylor said, backing away from verbal quicksand.

“All right, Dr. Taylor, to return to the issue, what does a citizenry do when the morons they elect simply brush their concerns aside? I don’t think that taking more of my hard-earned money is ‘just government business’. That statement, in itself, is a conditioned response. Taking a large portion of what I earn, by threat of force, deprives me of what I have worked for and diminishes my life. It’s called robbery when anyone other than the government does it.”

“Such conditioning points up the purposeful selectivity of these labels. They apply to whoever you want them to apply to at the moment. What is the difference between the Mafia and the Internal Revenue Service if both of them demand half of everything I earn, and threaten to send armed men to destroy my life if I don’t pay up? Why is one labeled organized crime, and considered bad, and the other labeled government, and my acquiescence is considered public duty?”

“That’s not really a good analogy though, Ms., Mrs., uh, Beverly,” Taylor smiled, trying to recover. “I don’t understand where you are going with this,” Taylor grinned at the camera, shook his head as if the audience shared his mystification.

“I’m trying to get an answer from a self-proclaimed expert, Dr. Taylor, on what the size limit is for a group of people to be paranoid kooks, and to discover what discriminates between a conspiracy and just plain business or politics as usual. I’m trying to pin you down to something specific and definitive, rather than listen to you babble generic labels and stock platitudes. I’m asking you to provide my viewers with a psychological assessment of the mentality of the players involved in a specific example of typical government behavior and the resulting typical social backlash. How about an answer?”

By now, the camera crew and set director were so riveted by the sparks flying on the set that they forgot to break for commercials.

“I can’t see that this has anything to do with a gang of criminals who threaten to kill innocent people if the government doesn’t give them what they want,” Taylor responded heatedly. “They are not mainstream society, so by virtue of elimination, that makes them deviants.”

Watkins pounced like a mongoose playing with a snake, “So by your implication, enclaves of native populations with localized interests are deviants? Does that mean that African-Americans and other ethnic minorities with a non-government agenda are
deviants
? What about businesses with specific economic concerns?”

“No!” Taylor was exasperated. “We are not talking about subcultures or markets here, for Christ’s sake. We are talking about individuals who do not fit into the mainstream beliefs of society. They distrust others. They keep quiet about their personal convictions in order to get by.”

“Aren’t ‘mainstream beliefs’ simply a product of whichever faction currently dominates the culture of a society, Dr. Taylor? Don’t businesses distrust their competitors? If you and I went to live in a highly ethnic culture, say Sweden for example, and tried to fit in with the native culture despite our philosophical and cultural differences over sex, religion and social customs, wouldn’t we be deviants by your definition? I mean, if we felt socially isolated, and sought out the society of other displaced Americans who shared our beliefs and customs, just as the Jews, Latinos, Blacks, Vietnamese, Chinese, Cubans, Italians and Poles do in America, wouldn’t we be resented by the indigenous population, and treated as enclaves or cults of deviants?”