The Death Trust (46 page)

“You might find this hard to believe, Special Agent Cooper, but I’m pleased that you proved to be every bit as agile an investigator as your record suggests. We need men like you.” He cleared his throat and stood without swaying. He might have been drinking for America, but he apparently had the constitution to handle it. For a second I almost admired him, but the second passed.

“Vincent, the First World War ended the old European empires and began a new one: the empire of the United States. We found ourselves the one superpower in a world exhausted by war. And so the roaring Twenties roared for us like no other nation on earth. Our industrial base, already vast, expanded exponentially. Then the Great Depression struck and brought us to our knees, along with every other industrialized country.”

Cutter pocketed the Beretta and began to pace as he talked, not at me but at the floor and the ceiling, like he was giving an oration to Congress. I kept my eyes on that pocket while he droned on. “Why did it happen, the Great Depression? More specifically, how did it get a hold of our economy so quickly and strangle it so completely? There are many theories, of course, but there’s a widely held but little discussed belief that a significant cause was simply this: The United States, along with most of the rest of the world, had eschewed the manufacture of armaments after the carnage of World War One. In so doing, a sizeable portion of the international community’s
stabilizing
economic activity was wiped out. Since then, a number of private-sector as well as government studies have put the very nature of war and the military complex under the microscope. And do you know what these studies have consistently revealed about war, Special Agent?”

“That it’s a great way to kill a bunch of folks?” I said. I wanted to tell him that I didn’t give a rat’s ass about either the question or the answer, but the truth was that I was
very
interested in hearing what Cutter had to say. He was giving me The Speech, the same one he’d no doubt given to Abraham Scott shortly before the general told his father-in-law he didn’t give a rat’s ass either and, as a result, unwittingly sealed the fate of his son, Cutter’s own step-grandson, with a Barrett gun’s bullet.

Jefferson Cutter dismissed my comment by not acknowledging it. He continued with his spiel. “They found war essential to a nation’s economic well-being and even, perversely, to its political stability. They also found that if a war itself is not available, then the threat of war will do if the threat is big enough. Either one will stimulate investment in new technologies, manufacturing and, through it, employment. Why was this type of investment so vital?”

I shrugged.

“Because the investment in war is made
independently
of any other economic activity. In short, Vincent, the economic stimulus that results from war is not a windfall bonus; it’s the very foundation of any strong economy. And governments know all about these findings. They simply choose not to say anything about them.”

And it was not hard to imagine why, I thought. No government in its right mind would come out and say,
Hey, everyone, war is good fer yew!

Cutter picked out a book from the shelf, inspected the cover, and waggled it at me. “In 1967, during the height of the Cold War and the blossoming conflict in Indochina, a book purporting to be the leaked findings of a secret Washington think-tank examination of the social and political implications of an outbreak of peace was published. It was called
Report from Iron Mountain.
Among the conclusions reached by this think tank was that human sacrifice, organized population culling, and other substitutes for war will need to be found if armed conflict between nations is abandoned. At the time, before the so-called leak was revealed to be a hoax, there was intense media pressure on Washington to reveal whether the book was genuine and whether such a think tank actually existed. President Lyndon Johnson refused to either confirm or deny that existence, because, in fact, a top-secret committee
had
been formed decades before to examine this very question. Like the fictitious group in
Report from Iron Mountain,
the real one had a similar makeup: academics, industrialists, scientists, politicians, historians, sociologists. Its mandate, though, was radically different. It was charged to examine, isolate, and even
engineer
triggers for potential wars. This group called itself The Establishment. Its greatest achievement was Pearl Harbor.”

There it was. The Establishment. It existed.
And its greatest achievement was Pearl Harbor!
I let it sink in and tried not to let the rush of emotions boiling through me show. A group such as The Establishment would be by far the most powerful single body in the world.

“So, what…? You…this Establishment. You start wars for us, for the U.S.?” All the research Scott had been doing on our oil and steel sent to Imperial Japan…the sudden ban on these exports. Abraham Scott had simply been trying to verify what I’d just been told: that the organization calling itself The Establishment had willfully planned America’s entry into WWII, actually setting us on that particular collision course years before it happened.

“No, you weren’t listening, Vincent. The Establishment doesn’t
start
wars. Occasionally, however, if the need arises, we might manipulate some factors to set the whole thing in motion. It’s rare, but it happens.”

“So America’s exports to Japan during the 1930s…That was your idea?”

“Not mine, Vincent. May I call you Vince? I wasn’t even born at the time.”

I let the misunderstanding go. I needed a few minutes to get my head around this notion, reminding myself that I’d just heard about it from the man who was just one step away from being the commander in chief of the most powerful armed force on the planet. “So, The Establishment…you’re what? Like some kind of death trust, looking for opportunities to keep our military-industrial complex chugging along?”

“The death trust,” he said, nodding. “Catchy, Vincent. You definitely should be a writer, when you’re through with the air force, that is. Right now, though, your country needs you. These are trying times.”

“So I join or you shoot me? Is that what’s happening here?”

“The gun. Does it make you nervous?” He opened a desk drawer, removed the weapon from his pocket, and dropped it in. “There. Better?”

I was right about the recruiting thing as, I had no doubt, I’d been right about what happened to Abraham Scott, and why. “Are you the chairman of the board of this little group?” I asked.

Cutter almost chuckled. “No. I’m just one of many contributors, although I have particular roles, responsibilities, and…projects.”

I nodded, still somewhat dazed by the implications of what I’d just learned.

“You must understand that what I’m talking about here is national interest. It’s one of the great scams that war and the military-industrial complex that supplies it are merely tools of diplomacy. In fact, the reverse is true. Drink?” he asked as he sat and reached for the XO.

I indicated no with my hand. If Cutter was prepared to tell me everything, I needed a clear head with which to remember it.

“Suit yourself. This is exquisite brandy, by the way. Over a hundred years old. These grapes were picked before the outbreak of World War One. Imagine that. Horrendously expensive stuff. Evaporates when it hits your tongue.” He waggled his fingers in front of his mouth and nose to demonstrate the effect. “Well,” he said, clearing his throat, “like most people, you probably think that there is some kind of grand conspiracy operating at the highest level. The belief is actually nothing new. At the end of the nineteenth century, another book with an international conspiracy theme was written. This one was titled
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
It was an anti-Semitic tome written to frighten us gentiles into believing that there was a Jewish conspiracy in place to enslave Europe. The Nazis used it as one of the justifications for their Final Solution. Of course,
The Protocols
was another hoax, but the underlying notion of an unidentified someone or something out there pulling the strings has persisted. The true nature of this identity has yet to be fully grasped by the wider community, but our own research tells us that most people generally think they’re not being told the whole truth about how our society—and the economy that keeps it fed, clothed, and housed—is really structured. The truth of it is as simple as this: Society is a parasite on the military-industrial complex. Civilian society exists purely to support the military—a symbiotic relationship, if you like. Put another way, and quoting the author of
Report from Iron Mountain,
‘War is the principal organizational basis of the nation state.’”

I stared at him. My personal reality is that I’ve never given any thought whatsoever to the whole conspiracy thing. At least, not until I took this case. Actually, that’s not a hundred percent accurate. I do subscribe to the belief that the alcohol companies are trying to get us all permanently drunk and that, with me, they’d largely succeeded, at least over the past year. Looking at Jefferson Cutter, whose face was now rapidly becoming the color of a distance runner’s at the end of a long race, they had him by the scrotum, too. As if reading my mind, the Vice President poured himself another tumbler before continuing.

“The evidence of this relationship is all around us,” he said, unable to keep the smugness out of his voice. “In this country—in fact, in most countries—the military has its own infrastructure operating with very little assistance, if any, from civilian organizations. It is completely autonomous, with its own cities and towns where civilians are forbidden entry. It has its own legal system and law-enforcement agencies—your OSI is a prime example. The military has its own health system, educational institutions, administration and government. A world within a world. Look at any list of jobs for which the military recruits and you will see cleaners, bakers, electricians, mechanics, plumbers—”

“So, the First Convention. That’s another triumph of The Establishment, isn’t it?” I said, cutting him off.

He seemed surprised. “You know about that?”

The JPEG contained in the last level of Scott’s Dungeon was burned into my brain. It was the record of a secret meeting I now believed included elements of the government, the military, and key industrialists. Without a doubt, something so sensitive would have been top-secret and therefore headed for the shredder, pronto. I knew the words by heart, and quoted: “‘Insofar as no arm of the U.S. military shall purchase by government tender any part, artifact, or system, or parts thereof, utilizing new technology or new combinations of existing technology untested in combat…’ and so on, et cetera.” The First Convention, the so-called “quality clause.” It meant that only items tested in war could be bought for wholesale use by the U.S. military. It was a bombshell, a cynical ploy that kept billions of dollars flushing through the military-industrial complex so that our armed forces could be equipped with new hardware. God only knew how Scott had come into possession of the information, given its ultrasensitivity. And then I realized there was only one possible source. Cutter was shaking his head.

I said, “General Scott secretly photographed the minutes you showed him, didn’t he?”

“I believed Abraham was on our side, that he could see the convention’s necessity.”

“And why is it necessary?” I asked, enthralled and horrified at the same time.

“As I’ve explained, both the military and civilian societies require conflict to remain healthy. The military-industrial complex is the point of crossover. It’s where the civilian and military realms connect and feed off each other. The First Convention is merely a tool to facilitate that interaction.”

Cutter drained his glass and poured another before continuing. “Like any technology, military hardware has a life span. Roughly fifteen years. It’s no mistake that our conflicts—at least since the Korean War, when we were caught napping—have enjoyed roughly the same interval.”

“So today’s war is the proving ground for technology to be used in tomorrow’s? And we need it proved every fifteen years?”

“Yes,” said Cutter bluntly. “In recent years, however, because of the exponential rise in technological breakthroughs, and the concomitant redundancy attendant with the race to maintain our military edge, we can expect that generational life span to be reduced to ten years.”

He paused to collect his thoughts. I had nothing to say. I was struck dumb.

“Moreover,” he continued, “the First Convention guarantees that the military-industrial complex will supply many test items to the armed forces free of charge if a conflict arises. It ensures that our military is constantly being supplied with new and—please excuse the pun—groundbreaking technology, which it is, of course, tempted to put to practical test. The Patriot Missile is a prime example. An unknown quantity prior to Gulf War One, prime export item after it. The postwar international sales of that missile, let alone the contracts to our own forces, more than made up for the millions of dollars spent on free samples to the U.S. Army.”

“A war every ten years. Parents of potential robo-cannon fodder can rejoice in their usefulness,” I said.

“As I said, Vince, we are not monsters. New ways are being developed all the time to wage war at a distance, reducing American and allied casualties. I personally have had a hand in promoting many of these in my capacity as leader of the Senate.”

I shook my head to clear out the crap Cutter was depositing in it. I’d read about those ultratech weapons and the billions spent in their development. All the clues to this nightmare were there, in Abraham Scott’s Dungeon. Had I been half the investigator I thought I was, I’d have been able to put them together sooner and, just maybe, Anna would still be breathing. And, as for that bit about not being a monster, if Cutter had hollow fangs, lived in a coffin during the day, and sucked the juices from the veins of virgins during the night, he wouldn’t have been half the monster he was in reality.