Operation Damocles (7 page)

“Congress and the President claim that if they give in to these demands, no matter how innocuous they seem, that further, more impossible demands will be made in the future. In my personal opinion, I think that we should meet the demands until something impossible is actually demanded. What if these people are exactly what they say they are? Almost two weeks have passed since the tape was sent, and nothing has been done.

“I have interviewed five people, including Dr. Taylor, and I’m appalled at the moronic way this is being exploited. As with any big news item, the self-promoters like Dr. Taylor are coming out of the woodwork to get on television. The incumbent politicians are posing and acting defiant, while the ones who want to take their places are ridiculing the incumbents and offering asinine solutions, or no solutions at all.

“The military is speculating on whether or not this weapon is capable of the threatened destruction. No one seems to be considering the potential loss of life if it is, and if these people do exactly what they say they will do.

“There have been no attempts at negotiation, primarily because the terrorists have said there will be none. No one even knows how to communicate with them. They have been absolutely silent since the destruction at the Marine base in California. One assumes that they are listening to television broadcasts, and if they are, I hope that they will reconsider, and not destroy all those innocent lives. There must be another way to bring about change. We all know that our government is out of our control and we don’t know how to fix it, but the massacre of innocent people can’t be the solution.

“If you are listening, I appeal to you, sincerely, with all my heart, whoever you are, please don’t do what you have threatened. There has to be a better way.

“Once again, according to the warning, on August 11, residents of the East Coast need to be west of a line that runs roughly north-south along the Eastern Seaboard between Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Concord, Massachusetts. If what is threatened comes to pass, anyone who is east of that line on that day, is risking death. My instincts tell me to err on the side of safety. Take your most precious belongings and your pets, and move to safety. The man on the tape pleads with you to heed the warning. The only alternative is complete compliance with his demands, and as of this moment, that doesn’t seem likely.

“I want to thank you ladies and gentlemen in the audience, and our viewers for tuning in. We are out of time. I’m Beverly Watkins for
Perspective.
Good night.”

IX

On July 25, the White House held a press conference. The reporters present clapped sporadically as President Vanderbilt took the podium. Lack of the usual enthusiasm was a gauge of their concern, and Vanderbilt noted it.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the press,” he said, surveying the quiet, serious faces that regarded him, “and my fellow Americans, I’m glad of this opportunity to lay your fears to rest, and to cast some light on this situation. I will make a statement, then take a limited number of questions from the press.”

Vanderbilt glanced at his notes for a brief instant, his jaw working in a way that had become a noted characteristic, an unconscious manifestation of his thought processes when he was weighing which approach to take. He decided on his “comforting father” demeanor, rather than the “shaking his fist in the face of his antagonists” routine. Both were becoming the trademarks of his persona, and both were still fresh enough to garner a satisfactory response from the public when appropriately applied. Throughout his election campaign and his subsequent months in office, he had almost always used the comforting approach when he addressed concerns of policy that would affect jobs and similar domestic issues, such as economic matters of general interest to the nation. His damn the torpedoes approach was generally reserved for those small, sovereign nations, who for one reason or another, resisted U.S.-enforced United Nations edicts that dictated policy to them. Conflicts of those sort were generally only an immediate threat to the small nation and its neighbors, posed no real problem to the safety of American citizens, and so were not of great concern to the voting public, but his courageous image would be imprinted on the public psyche.

In the present situation, Vanderbilt had still debated, up until this moment, which tack to take. He decided that should his advice prove wrong, it would be safer not to be remembered as having dared the terrorists to “shoot and be damned.” He could further shift potential public ire toward the military, by laying his advice before the people as the collective wisdom of his military advisors.

He looked up and addressed the unseen audience of millions, focusing past the camera lens into the imagined living rooms of the nation. “I realize that many of you are concerned about the televised warnings, and the hysterics-inducing rhetoric that certain irresponsible media people have used to improve their audience share.” His disdainful eye drifted briefly over the assembled press contingent.

“Experts in the United States military, and the best scientific minds in our nation, do not believe that these terrorist threats have any real merit. This kind of communications-age goad is the greatest weapon in the arsenal of a modern terrorist, and he could not use it without the use of an information media that has instant access to millions of people. His actual power over people is magnified a million-fold by his ability to amplify the public’s perception of it.

“His principal method is to engender fear into the minds of the timid so that they become disorganized and at odds with the authorities, and behave in a way that disrupts organized efforts to combat him. That is where the term
terrorism
comes from. He seeks to create panic and distrust of the government. I ask you all to understand this, and to regain your sense of perspective.

“Ask yourselves, how could a nation, let alone a single man, destroy such a vast area as the Eastern Seaboard? Such a feat would require dozens of nuclear missiles, and the greatest nuclear powers on earth could not hope to do it with impunity. Let’s defeat this barbarous act of terrorism in the only way that it can be defeated . . . by ignoring it.

“If you will do this, these impotent threats will subside. The damage reported at Eidermann Air Force Base was greatly exaggerated by the sensation seekers. This was an old, almost abandoned, World War II airfield, in the middle of nowhere, which for the past thirty or forty years has been used only for the storage of obsolete equipment and war materiel. It was easily possible for some sensation-seeking whackos to plant explosives all over the place, and set them off with an ordinary timing device. Senator Bill Harford, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has conducted an in-depth investigation of the Eidermann incident, and he believes that it was accomplished in just that way.

“The United States Air Force Space Command and the United States Army Strategic Defense Command cannot confirm the initial idea that this was some kind of threat from space—an orbital weapon system of some sort. I don’t know who proposed such a thing, but experts assure me that such a weapon would be of considerable size, if it were possible at all, and that they can find no such weapon anywhere in the vicinity of Earth.

“Let me assure you that the Space Command keeps very close tabs on all objects in orbit about the Earth, and knows the position of every last fragment that might interfere with planned satellite launches. They can find no unlisted objects there.

“The authorities conclude that this is an empty threat by some demented faction that wants to have some sick fun at your expense. Let’s not give credence to these people, or even dignify such perversions by worrying about them. The authorities have things well in hand, and are seeking the perpetrators as we speak. I have no doubt that we will eventually find and arrest these people.”

Vanderbilt turned to his live audience: “Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll take a few questions at this time. I’m due at a Commerce briefing in thirty minutes, but I can grant a moment or two if you will keep your questions brief and to the point. Yes, Martha . . .”

X

Richard Calvin Broderick occupied a secluded, corner office on the third floor of “G” Building, at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. He and his small section consisted of twenty-two field operatives and a secretary. Broderick did not have a job description. If he had, under “Duties” it would probably have read, “Uses psychological terrorism and murder to manipulate public behavior . . .”

He did things to make sure that public thinking followed the path that Washington marked out for it. His job included drawing public attention away from embarrassing issues by creating diversions, or steering public opinion in a preferred direction, or just by instilling the fear of God into a particular group of people. Sometimes it just required a bit of S&M—smoke and mirrors. He was an inventive man.

Barely five feet seven, Broderick carried a big chip on his shoulder. Unsmiling and hard-eyed, he was never sociable and never made small talk. Few people outside those in mail distribution even knew his name, save for his secretary and perhaps a few in the other sections in the immediate vicinity of his office. He came and went with little notice. The people he passed in the hall really had no idea of what he did. When he did talk, it was to one of his staff or his immediate superior, and it was curt, to the point, and never friendly.

A certain faction in the CIA community had recruited Broderick three years earlier, in an under-the-table fashion, from the
Cosa Nostra
. The agency had need of his intimate knowledge of the underworld, and all his useful connections. It just so happened that it was also a good deal, and good timing, for Broderick. He knew a little too much about his former “family,” and a few of his “relatives” were at the point of “punching his ticket” when the agency brought him inside. He was intelligent and ruthless. In short, he was as ugly a piece of work as ever came out of Brooklyn, and he was well suited for what he did.

Broderick was a domestic “mole,” an underground operative with broad latitude and a hidden budget, secret even within the intelligence community. Like the few others of his kind, he served the hidden leadership of the nation, the underground power structure that really dictates federal policy—the anonymous money and power that makes and breaks politicians and industries.

Even he did not know who the ultimate powers were, but he knew they had vast resources, and he knew they manipulated governments as the hidden puppeteer manipulates wooden dolls. The public had no knowledge of this conspiracy that starts and stops wars, and controls world resources and markets.

Broderick and his kind were secret from the public because what they did was illegal; it was outside the scope and authority of the CIA charter and every other legal tenet. The CIA wasn’t supposed to meddle in the internal affairs of the United States, and indeed, only a very few within the agency were aware of internal, isolated groups like Broderick’s. His orders originated outside normal agency channels, from the White House itself, and sometimes even closer to the elusive aura of power that controlled everything.

On the morning of July 26, Broderick opened his office door to admit one of his operatives. James Reed was an experienced field agent, a communications expert, and had only recently become a member of Broderick’s very exclusive staff. At six-two, Reed stood head and shoulders above Broderick, had a broad-shouldered, athletic build, and as with all bigger men, Broderick had disliked him from the moment they had met.

Reed had been screened for Broderick’s team because he had worked as a foreign operative for the National Security Agency in the Middle East during the Iran/Contra days, and had been someone “in the know.” He had been loyal and reliable, and had worked hard to mitigate the damage to the NSA. He had helped to cover the agency’s tracks by destroying incriminating evidence and sending congressional investigators down blind alleys. He had also performed a few damage-control missions in the past, missions that required more than normal discretion. He was considered a “good soldier.”

A farm boy from Kansas, Reed had been inducted into the community during his fourth year in the Marines. He was twenty-one when he became an agent, and after seventeen years, the agency was his home. He was loyal to it—believed in it.

Broderick didn’t respect Reed, or anyone else for that matter, regardless of their loyalty, ethics or dependability. He considered people to be no more than tools, and he treated his tools with disdain.

Without inviting Reed to sit, he asked: “What about this TV news broad, Reed, the one in Indiana? Why couldn’t we kill the broadcast over the networks? Those satellite-communications geeks in Central Communications Services are supposed to see that crap like that gets filtered out. The international wire services picked it up.”

Reed walked into the office casually and, turning, faced Broderick as the smaller man closed the door and walked back to his desk. “They have a satellite link with an unlisted translator frequency,” Reed replied calmly to Broderick. “No one knew it until CCS tried to kill the signal during the downlink delay. Even the TV station thought the frequency was registered. They have an approved frequency assignment. It was just a paperwork foul-up. We can’t cover every little, podunk TV and radio station in America without ever missing a single detail somewhere.”

“What about the opinionated broad?”

“Her name is Beverly Watkins. We got her fired. She won’t work in broadcasting again.”

Broderick turned livid. “You brainless fool,” he flared. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? You don’t get them fired. At least not right away, and not over the real issue.”

He sighed, shook his head, and explained as if to a child, ticking off each point on his fingers. “Get with the program, Reed. You have their management people counsel them against using antigovernment rhetoric. If they don’t straighten up, you have their management fire them over job performance issues, such as being habitually late for work, or having a drinking problem, or even over artistic temperament. Those things will effectively blacklist them within the industry.

“If they actually have any suspicions that they are being isolated from the public, and get vocal about it, you have the IRS apply pressure to their families, their adult children if they have any, or their friends. It’s more effective that way than applying pressure directly to them. They can feel self-sacrificing, instead of ashamed, for not retaliating.

“You shut them up, Reed, you don’t give them ammunition and motive to use it. Because of your bungling, she’ll file a suit, as sure as I’m standing here. Suits like that attract citizen watchdog groups like a carcass attracts flies. It makes a mess, Reed. Important people have to answer questions. My question to you is, how are you going to clean this mess up?”

“I don’t understand why it was necessary to shut her up in the first place,” Reed responded calmly. “It’s not as if she were on a crusade against the government. It was an isolated incident, and with all the other media circuses this thing is producing, it would have faded from public consciousness within a few days. Even if a few people took notice, what does the opinion of one ordinary person matter?”

“Why is not your worry, Reed. She’s not an ordinary person. She’s a public figure. A newscaster . . . even if a minor one. We can’t have wild-card revolutionaries in the communications industry, if we are going to keep order. As long as they are not directly challenged, Americans will grumble and complain, but they will remain passive. We can’t have someone in the media stirring them up. It would be an authoritative voice confirming their deepest suspicions. Because of your bungling, we’re going to have to find a way to silence her.”

Reed looked at Broderick as if he had just turned over a rock and found something disgusting. Broderick glanced at Reed, noted the look, and glared back at him, black eyes filled with hate.

“What made you pick me for this outfit, Broderick?” Reed asked. “I’ve done things for God and country that would turn even your stomach, and I haven’t questioned much, even when I felt like scum for doing it. I took it for granted that wiser heads than mine had weighed the need, understood the gravity of what we were doing, and had decided that no matter how terrible it was, it was necessary and justified. Now, you’re talking about doing it to American citizens. I can’t see how that can be called protecting America. Not by any stretch of the imagination. It’s not even legal, according to our charter. Does your chain of command approve of what you’re doing, Broderick?”

Broderick stood, keeping the desk between himself and Reed. “You have your orders, Reed. Clean up the Watkins thing. You’ll do whatever I order you to do, or you’ll become a GS-3 orderly at the Pentagon. You will get increasingly poor performance ratings for the next six months, and then you’ll be fired. With that in your Official Personnel File, you couldn’t get hired to clean restrooms in a national park. You’ll lose your pension, and you’ll be blacklisted everywhere.”

Reed looked at Broderick for a long moment, as if absorbing a new idea. Finally, “What do you want me to do?”

Broderick studied Reed’s face. “I think you had better arrange an accident,” he said. “Maybe she surprises a burglar, and he panics and kills her. It’s the only thing we can do, now. We don’t have complete control of the municipal courts. If we wait till she files suit, she’ll be in the public eye. If we try to talk her out of it, she’ll know for a fact that something shady is going on. We can’t afford any more public suspicions that the media is being controlled. Not for a few more months, at least. You have the resources and the people, Reed. Make it happen, and don’t screw it up.”

“You’re insane, Broderick,” Reed said quietly. “You have no reason to kill her. There are many ways to discredit her. She’s an American citizen, and she’s not really a threat to anyone in government, or to the security of this nation.”

Broderick stood, tense, eyes glittering with inner hate. “We’re going to make an example of her, Reed, to the industry. If we don’t punish her, radicals in the networks will get bolder. If the networks start letting rebel newscasters be heard by the public, they will raise issues we don’t want raised. The news media has to be kept in line . . . and so do you, Reed.

“This isn’t the Cold War—us against a foreign enemy. This is the beginning of the new world order. National boundaries don’t exist anymore. Business and politics are global. If you can’t adjust your thinking . . . if you insist on acting like a patriotic fool . . . you will regret it. I can promise you that.”

The two men stared at each other, each a ruthless killer in his own right, but with a difference in philosophy that was miles apart.

“Are you going to do your job, Reed?” Broderick asked directly, outwardly calm.

“I’ll have to think about that,” Reed said. He looked at Broderick, as if speculating, then turned on his heel and left, closing the door behind him.

After a moment of thought, Broderick picked up the phone and dialed. He stared at the door through which Reed had just left, and after a brief wait, said into the phone, “I think we’ve got a problem.”