The Hammer of God (9 page)

“Your pop was a truck driver. You weren't ‘anybody's' kid.”

“And I got let go three times for not belonging to anybody. But I got hired back four times.”

“How?”

“I was good and I had a little secret I shared with the news managers.”

“Job security?”

“In our room was one of the first Xerox machines, a 3600. It was massive and had stuff we take for granted today: document feeder, 20-copy sorter, up to 999 copies. Had a Nixie tube readout.”

“Ahhh, Nixie tubes… please stick to the story.” Bill checked his watch.

“Anyway, do you know why it took so long to invent copy machines? Because they had to invent copier repairmen first. ‘Cause you couldn't run one of those suckers for more than a few hours before they broke down. I only worked Saturday and Sunday nights cause of school, but I made seventy-five dollars for the weekend. I was paid through newsroom dinner vouchers. Every week I was somebody's dinner.”

“Wow. Seventy-five a week back in ‘68. That must-a been good!”

“My dad broke his ass on the stone truck for one-seventy-five a week! So anyway, one Sunday night the news manager has a report to get out and the Xerox is down. He's about to retype the whole fifteen pages on Rexograph masters when I say, ‘I think I can fix it.'

“‘You think you can fix the Xerox machine?' he says.

“‘I might have to shut the lights in the newsroom for a while.'

“So then he says, ‘Peter, I'll give everybody flashlights to work with if you can fix it.'

“I started by defeating all the cabinet door sensors with paper clips. The problem was the tray that you pulled out to free jammed paper came all the way off the runners and the ball bearings went everywhere. So I shimmed up the tray using shaved down pencils. I got that sucker right in line but had to run the machine wide open cause of all these sticks and tape and paper clips hanging out of it.”

“I bet NBC news was never the same after this,” Hiccock said.

“Billy, you had to see it. At one point this big arcing light was swooping across the entire newsroom with each page being copied. I had to shut the lights because it was an electro-photostatic process. The inside of the machine was like a dark room, so when it was open the room had to be dark, but I had it running and humming. At the last minute, the news manager came in and asked for the last page of the report back. I remember I used to have to print it on NBC stationary that had hundreds of little interlocking NBC logos on it. He gave me back the last page and I collated it into the thirty copies of the fifteen-page report. Then I went about my job distributing it to the inner-office list. I did that every Sunday as the last thing I did before I went home. This way the VPs had it on Monday first thing when they got in.”

“So that's how you stayed employed?”

“No. It's how I got fired. Actually, on that last page? He rewrote the end to say, ‘This entire report wouldn't be possible without the ingenuity and determination of desk assistant Peter Remo.'”

“Nice touch.” Bill said.

“Actually, not really. When the head weenie in personnel read that about me, he checked his list and found that I was nobody's kid and fired me the next day. A week later, I was hired back.”

“Great story Peter, but what the hell's that got to do with why you called me?”

“What happens then is Professor Brodenchy sets up his committee and gets Kasiko to be the Sergeant of Arms. Around the holidays a year or so after I started working there, Kasiko invites me to his home for a little Christmas Dinner…”

Joey Palumbo didn't like off the record meetings. They ran against his Quantico cut, by-the-book, grain. His reluctance to meet with Agent Burrell, “out of the house,” was hard to hide as she approached the bench in the park located at the beginning of Madison Avenue in Manhattan.

“Thanks for coming, Mr. Palumbo.”

It still stung that he'd lost the SAC salutation ahead of his name. “No problem, Special Agent Burrell.”

“Brooke, please.”

“Brooke. So what's on your mind?”

“Aliz Berniham.”

“Nice job processing him. That was a career-making collar if there ever was one.”

“NYPD SWAT did the hard cheese. Your guy Hiccock's magic network zipped the I.D.s in record time. I just mopped up.”

“Still, it goes on your dance card.”

“I've been dancing with the good Sheik, and I got a bad feeling.”

“Did you report this?”

“I don't report feelings because, being FFBI, they still don't rise to the same level of male intuition. “

“So then unofficially give me the Female FBI intuition.”

“Something big is in play… I don't know what… I just know that this creep knows that another shoe is going to drop and drop big.”

“How or what can SCIAD do to help you?”

“I didn't want to meet with you because of SCIAD, sir.”

That surprised Joey.

“I wanted to talk with you because you were a good agent. How can I stop whatever this is that I think is going on?”

“He's been in ‘iso,' right?”

“From the moment he came conscious, it's been FBI only.”

“So he couldn't have any current info.”

“Exactly, so this must be a long range plan.”

“Like 9-11!” Joey said.

“That's my fear.”

“But, Brooke, you stopped him and his plot, which at the end of the day could have killed 80 to 100 million Americans. That isn't chopped liver. That was a big shoe, too! Maybe the one and only, not a pair.”

“See, that's part of my… Okay, let's say you were him, the mastermind of the biggest bio-plot ever, and it failed like it did. You would think that was it; the big wad had just got shot. Wouldn't you be defeated, introspective, hell, angry! Yet …”

“Your other shoe feeling?”

“See why I didn't want to send this up the chain?”

“It could just be him in denial?”

“He's too cool. Too smart.”

“Yeah, we forget that despite the popular opinion, most of these terrorists are college-educated, most with degrees, and all middle-to-upper class.”

“This guy talks like he has two degrees in science, but we can't track him back further than 15 years.”

“Can you work him?”

“Not in this environment. The director is yielding to public pressure, so the Sheik has had uninterrupted sleep at night, in climate control comfort, without any discomfort caused by his detainment. He is allowed to pray five times a day and he has weekly, monitored visits with a holy man.”

“So you have no interrogation leverage?”

“None. That's why I have been flat out straight with him on how his life can get even better.”

“Get better? What's the death toll estimate at, right now? 26,000 additional deaths?” Joey curtailed his instinct to slam down on the park bench with his fist.

“Around that number. Thousands needlessly killed just because this asshole decides to infect America.”

“And because those deaths are statistically within the range of possible deaths from influenza, a really bad influenza, there isn't the same hatred of this bag of excrement that there would be if he poisoned the water supply of a small town, or blew up 80 airliners to reach 26,000 dead.” Joey was getting less objective and more agitated as he focused on the kid glove, politically correct, religiously sensitive handling of this mass murdering scumbag.

“So he gets the royal treatment, while his ‘comrades in alms' don't think twice about cutting off Daniel Pearl's head. Makes me wanna go in there and introduce him to flesh-eating bacteria. Slow, flesh-eating bacteria.”

In a way, she stole Joey's thunder and rage, and he took on the role of objective mentor. He looked at the woman agent, who appeared not much older than a teenager, and as American as apple pie.
‘Corn Flake!'
That's what the guys in the Bronx would call a person from Iowa or the midwest, a corn flake. Then he remembered this one had frosted a terrorist in a parking lot in New Jersey on the way to foiling a chemical attack on the New York area that would have brought unimaginable death. This was one tough corn flake and if her sixth sense was tingling, there was probably something to it.

“Whoa. Agent Burrell, we're the good guys remember?”

“He just…”

Then Joey saw a flash of something he missed before, subtle and quickly dissolved, but there nonetheless. “There's something else, isn't there?”

As she looked at him, Joey could see the two opposing forces waging battle in her head. The deep breath she then took was the surrender flag of one side. “He scares the bejesus out of me, sir.”

“You are in fear for your safety?”

“Not just me, although yes, me too, but he thinks… no, strike that, he knows, he's getting out. He doesn't have to play ball with me or give up any info. He just has to wait it out because one day he won't be there.”

“He's manacled, right?”

“24/7 and anchored at night and at meals.”

“Ten bucks!”

“What?”

“Go to the bank; get a roll of quarters…” What Joey then described was in no agent's field manual ever printed by the FBI.

In late December 1968, twenty-five people attended the traditional Christmas dinner in Kasiko's apartment in Jackson Heights. Peter noticed a shelf above the fireplace where there were more than 40 finely etched and brilliantly colored eggs. All beautifully displayed on gold stands. Of the people there, many of the men were scientists. Peter actually recognized many of them from TV shows on Channel 13 and the Sunday morning shows that featured scientists who talked about everything Sputnik, Gemini, Teflon, and beyond. The men were very engaging; most spoke with thick foreign accents, but Peter was able to have deep discussions with most of them. They spoke of things that Peter had never heard of, Global Warming, Nanotechnology, Large Scale Integration, Cold Fusion, and Supercomputing. None of which at the time could be read about or was even mentioned in
Scientific American
. When Peter left, he felt he had met some really smart guys. What he didn't know was they had all agreed later, in a small impromptu meeting, that they had met a really smart kid. So Kasiko got their permission to bring the kid into the fold. His first assignment would come Saturday night.

Before “Saturday Night Live” began its reign, NBC Studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza was deader than a doornail on a Saturday night. In fact, aside from master control and a few videotape guys, the news was the only department with even half a staff. After the torrent of activity getting the “Weekend Huntley Brinkley Report” on the air at 6:30 (it aired off tape in New York at 7:00 p.m.) things settled down to a constant drip of non-events. Every 30 minutes or so, Peter, often working alone on weekends, would make the rounds in the room and spike copy. Spiking was the process of distributing the five impact copies of teletype paper from each newswire machine to the various on-air talent, producers, writers, or directors whose names were above spikes running all the way around the room. During the day the spikes were cleaned every 15 minutes or so. But on weekends, only the news manager, domestic and international film desks, and a few local writers across the hall doing the “11th Hour New York” local news came to gather their copy. So once every thirty minutes was all it took to do a fine job keeping up with the slow moving stories.

Peter was surprised when Kasiko came through the door. With the exception of the Christmas party the other night, he had actually not seen him, in or out of the office for months, because during the school year, Peter only worked weekends.

Kasiko didn't waste time with small talk. “Peter, you know some of the people at the party were very impressed with you. They agreed to ask you to join them as my assistant.”

“You mean the scientists?”

“Yes, they are doing some important work for the United Nations and I handle the security for the committee.”

“What's the committee?”

“First you have to sign this and swear not to divulge the work that you may be called upon to do.”

“Sign what?”

“This it's a non-disclosure agreement.”

Peter read the paper, then signed and dated it.

Kasiko knew this was more for effect since Peter was way under the age of consent, but he felt it would make the desired impression. “The first thing I need you to do is tonight, when no one is around, make five copies of this.” Kasiko handed Peter an envelope and dangled a key on a chain. “Here's the key to my desk. Leave the copies in the bottom drawer and put the key under my phone.”

“Sure.” Peter held up the envelope. “What is this?”

“It's just something we need five copies of, no questions asked. Can you do that?”

“Yes of course, tonight, later.”

“Thank you, and welcome to the committee.”

Kasiko took the envelope back, put it in the lower desk drawer, locked the desk, and handed Peter the key, adding, “Remember, when no one else is around.” Then he left.

The 11 o'clock net feed was the only story tonight. Other than that it was an unusually slow news night. That meant the 8-to-12 shift would be leaving early. The 12-to-8 shift would be light. Peter was working a double again so that he could make $37.50 a shift, times two, in one night during school months. That was a ton of money for a 14-year-old in the late '60s.

By 11:30 p.m., Peter was the only one in the whole newsroom. The manager, domestic film desk, and exec producer of local news were down in Hurleys, the watering hole located on the 6th Avenue and 49th Street corner of the RCA building. So popular was Hurleys with the hard drinking men of journalism, that a special yellow phone was connected from under the manager's desk to a phone in the table's booth. In case of any emergency, Peter's orders were clear: ring up the yellow phone. The execs had an elevator operator standing by and could teeter into the newsroom within 40 seconds of Peter's call.

When the news manager left at 20 after 11, Peter checked on the “nightman” and saw he was in an office typing. The coast was now clear; this was the time. He unlocked the desk and retrieved the gray envelope with the blue interlocking NBC logo. Inside was an oak tag file folder, which contained something called a galley proof. It was pages of a book. It looked to Peter as if someone opened a book and placed it down flat on a Xerox, so that both adjoining pages could be read across. Peter took half the pages and set them in the document feeder. He then set the digital nixie tube display by turning a knob beneath each number. He turned the right-most knob five clicks until the number above read “005.” Maybe because he felt like a secret agent just then, he then turned it two more times just to see the 007 in thin, red gaseous numbers. Then, for some reason he didn't understand, he set the display to 010 and pushed the sort button and then the start button. Papers started slotting into the 10 sort bins as the machine clunked and ca-chunked along. When the first half of the original had passed through, he tapped down and smoothed the last half and placed it in the feeder. Soon he had 10 copies of something called,
Harmonic Epsilon
. He put the five copies and the original in the big envelope Kasiko brought. It was a tight fit but he got them in. He placed them in the desk drawer, locked it, and pocketed the key.

The other five he put in a similar gray NBC envelope and spent the next hour trying to figure out what to do with it. First, he put it on a shelf behind the Rexograph machine. Ten minutes later, nervous that it would be found, he moved it to below the Reuters machine. Twenty minutes later, he moved it behind the Xerox machine. He had never felt this guilty or self-conscious before. He moved the envelope five more times before he finally decided to hide it in the men's room under the sink. At 7:55 the 8 a.m. shift was in and Peter signed out. He went to the men's room, retrieved the stuffed envelope, and slid it under his winter coat. He headed for the elevators feeling as though he'd robbed a bank. Only when he was safely aboard the uptown Lexington Ave. local did he abandon his usual place in the front car looking out the front window of the train and risk peeking into the envelope.

Harmonic Epsilon
by
Blake C. Lathie
1968 Auckland, New Zealand.
Printed in Hong Kong.

He turned to the first page.

I have never been abducted by aliens, nor have I ever chatted in Venusian with a green skinned, extra terrestrial; in fact, I've never even seen a flying saucer! That's not what this book is about. This book is a call to anyone reading it to refute or reinforce the evidence I have stumbled upon which supports the existence of UFOs. I have taken these mathematical formulas as far as I can with my rudimentary knowledge of math; maybe someone out there with access to the new, large calculating machines can further the work or, again, refute it.

That sent a chill down Peter's spine. It was an ominous opening for not only the book but for the next chapter of Peter's life. He flipped through the pages and saw lots of mathematical formulas. There were charts, maps, and tables. Normally after a double shift Saturday night, Peter got off the train on Gunhill Road and went straight to the 9 a.m. Sunday mass at Immaculate Conception. On this day, he went right home and started reading. He read about the Bermuda Triangle, Easter Island, the Lines of Nasscar, Vortexes, and the Grid. The Grid was the principle argument in the book. Somehow, the Grid was inexorably linked to other physical phenomena of the Earth. The Grid's effect on man was considerable but unknown to the world. In fact, except for the postulates presented in the book in his hand, the Grid didn't exist. The geometry and power of the Grid was a discovery awaiting revelation, until this book put it together.

There was little in this book that Peter had ever heard before. Even the math was strange. It was centered on a number system based on 2.73 or Epsilon. Some of the equations were navigational; others dealt in something called harmonics that he hadn't a clue about. At 2 p.m., his phone rang.

“Peter, it's Kasiko. You didn't leave the key under the phone.”

“Aw, shit! Damn it! I'm sorry. I did lock the drawers, right?”

“Yes, you did that.”

“Mr. K, I'm so sorry. Do you want me to run in there right now and bring you the key?”

“No Peter, I have another key. Bring your key by my house tonight. A few members from the committee are meeting around 7 p.m.”

Peter hung up the phone with relief. He'd screwed up, but now he got a second chance to meet with some of the men on the committee.

He put on the TV to see if there was a Giants game on. The black-and-white set was tuned to Channel 13 and a show called “The Open Mind” was on. He adjusted the rabbit ear antenna on the top of the Sears-Roebuck TV. Lewis Rukeyser was interviewing Dr. Ensiling and they were talking about whether or not nuclear power would ever be safe enough to deliver the promise it once held. Ensiling maintained that it was safe in the American design of double-walled reactors, but that the rest of the world didn't have that technology and therefore as other countries became nuclear dependent the danger level would rise as less-safe reactors went into operation. He then almost casually threw in the point that, of course, the problem of nuclear waste is still to be adequately resolved, but in 10 years maybe they'll have figured it out.

When the program was over, Peter was blown away.
Wow. I know that guy.
There was a Sinbad movie on Channel 2's “Picture for a Sunday Afternoon.” He watched Sinbad in badly dubbed English fight a two-headed dragon and save a princess. He'd gotten dressed and, at the insistence of his father, he went to 4 o'clock mass. Then he took two trains and a bus to arrive at Kasiko's house at seven sharp.

Peter handed the key to Kasiko as soon as he entered. As he said hello to everyone, he couldn't get his eyes off Ensiling. It was sudden hero worship, as if Y.A. Tittle, the New York Giants quarterback, was in the room. Peter said nothing but listened intently to every word that flew around the table. They were speaking Hungarian politics and the politics of Europe as a whole. As dinner was served, one of the men asked Peter his thoughts on the SALT agreement. He felt a momentary wave of panic welling up inside him, and then he remembered that Ensiling had mentioned SALT in the show. He quickly rifled through the main points as he remembered them. “Well, I don't know too much about it, but the problem is the two-headed serpent that nuclear power is. One head is the peaceful use, which is inherently dangerous, except for the United States reactors. But if we gave the world our design, then they'll be that much closer to making high-quality atomic fuel for bombs.” And there in one succinct sentence was the summation of Peter's day of watching TV. The only thing he'd left out was the Brylcreem commercial.

“My, what a colorful analogy,” another scientist named Brodenchy said. “A doubled-headed serpent; how insightful.”

“Peter, you are correct. But are you suggesting we limit the proliferation of nuclear energy?”

“Well… no. We could operate it for all the other countries then we can make sure it's only used for peaceful means.”

“Peter, there are so many geo-political problems with that solution that I can't even start.”

“Oh.” Peter was a little deflated.

Ensiling noticed his embarrassment. “Now you can't blame Peter for his America-centric view of the world. He is, after all, the only American at this table.”

Peter smiled and felt that Prof. Ensiling was a nice guy because he was speaking up for him.

At one point, someone asked for mustard and Kasiko warned, “Only take a little; it's very hot, you know.”

“Yeah, a little dab will do ya,” Peter said making it a clean sweep for Sunday afternoon TV.

After dinner, they retired to the living room. There, the talk turned to the committee. Most of it was procedural: when to plan future meetings, creating subcommittees, and the timing of interim reports. Eventually, the subject got to the book.

“Have the reports from Egypt come in yet?”

“No, we hope to have them by early next week.”

“Kasiko, do you have the document?”

“Yes. Thanks to Peter I have a copy for each of you on the Harmonic Sub committee.” He then doled out the books that Peter had copied. He returned the original to Prof. Ensiling. Thank you for bringing this to us.”

“I was never so nervous in all my life going through customs.”

Peter resisted the urge to add,
I know what you mean, shheez
! lest he reveal his skullduggery.