THE OVERTON WINDOW (38 page)

They’d given Noah a radio and a small TV, but he knew those wouldn’t help to clarify anything for him. On the contrary; the Emergency Alert System had kicked in shortly after the thwarted attack, and though some individual stations and networks were active again, the news still had the distinctive sameness of single-source coverage. While no real disaster had actually happened, the selected newspeople were breathlessly working 24/7 to puff up the disasters that
might
have happened, and what might still be looming ahead tomorrow. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt—the three most effective weapons in the arsenal of Arthur Gardner—were keeping the country in an uneasy state of tension and helplessness, much like his own.

“What can one person do?”
That was the passive, rhetorical question that kept people silent and powerless in the face of things that seem too large and frightening to overcome. It was the question in Noah’s mind, as well.
Now I see the truth, and yes, I want to live it, but what can I do?

He decided to sleep on that, because so far he’d been unable to come up with a good answer.

Noah brushed his teeth and washed as soon as the bathroom was free, left the sink and the shower and the commode a lot cleaner than he’d found them, dressed for bed, and turned in. He rolled over onto
his side and saw his first filled calendar grid, with the second empty one beside it on the wall.

Where would he be a month from now?

That answer seemed depressingly certain. But then, where might Molly be? Asking that question had become a nightly ritual at the end of these dreary days, and it was still on his mind as he fell asleep a while later on.

There was no hard transition between consciousness and the beginning of his now-familiar dream.

Noah opened his eyes and looked around. He was in the small, warm family room of a rustic little cabin. Surrounding him were simple furnishings, hand-made quilts, and corner shelves of keepsakes and photographs. Unlike the mass-produced, impersonal flash of the world he’d left behind, the things here had been built and woven and carved and finished by skilled, loving hands, things made or given by friends and family, made to mean something, to be passed on, and to last through generations.

Snow fluttered down outside the wide windows, big flakes sticking and blowing past the frosted panes, an idyllic woodland scene framed in pleated curtains and knotty pine. He was sitting in front of a stone hearth. A pair of boots were drying there, with space for another, smaller pair beside. A fire was burning low, a black dutch oven suspended above the coals, the smell of some wonderful meal cooking inside. Two plates and silver settings were arranged on a nearby dining table.

A simple evening lay ahead. Though it might seem nearly identical to a hundred other nights he’d spent with her, he also knew it would be unlike any other, before or after. It always was; being with Molly, talking with her, listening to her, enjoying the quiet with her, feeling her close to him, thinking of the future with her. Every night was like a perfect first date, and every morning like the first exciting day of a whole new life together.

Like Molly had said, such a simple existence certainly wasn’t for everyone. But the freedom to choose one’s own pursuit of happiness— that’s what her country was founded on, and that’s what she was fighting for.

Noah heard a sound at the entrance, and he turned to welcome her home again.

But when he looked, it was a different room he saw around him. He blinked repeatedly, but the reality he’d woken up to wouldn’t disappear so easily. The man from the hall was looking through the window in the frame, beckoning Noah to the door.

He sighed, got up, walked over, and turned the lock. It was only a formality, of course; it wasn’t as though the guy outside didn’t have a key of his own.

After the usual pleasantries the man in the hall offered Noah a tray from the rolling cart beside him.

“Looks like I woke you up. Sorry about that.”

“That’s okay,” Noah said. “What’s for dinner?”

The man lifted the round stainless steel cover from the plate on the tray. “Sure looks like Thursday to me,” he replied.

“Ah, my favorite.”

The man had nearly returned to his cart, but he stopped and came nearer again. “Say, I see you here every day, and it occurred to me tonight, we’ve never been properly introduced.”

Noah put down his tray on the side table inside his door. “I’m Noah Gardner.”

The man nodded, and casually glanced left and then right down the hallway before he answered, quietly, “My friends call me Nathan. I’ve got a message for you,” he said. “Would you mind if I came in for just a moment?”

“Of course, come on in.”

He stepped aside and closed the door as the other man walked past him into the room. Noah watched as he unplugged the TV, ran his fin
gers along the edges of the desk as though feeling for something hidden, and then clicked on the radio and turned it up loud enough to establish some covering background noise.

“What is this—?” Noah began, and before he could finish that question he found himself pushed hard against the wall with a forearm pressed against his neck and the other man’s face close to his.

“You want to know what this is?” Nathan hissed. “It’s a wake-up call. You’re in a valuable position, my friend, and we need for you to snap out of it and start doing the work we need done.” He adjusted his grip on Noah’s collar, and continued. “Now listen closely. Tomorrow, at your job, you sign into your computer right before you leave for the day, but you don’t sign out. Here’s a key.” Noah felt something shoved roughly into his pocket. “You’re going to leave it under the mouse pad on the desk two places down from yours, to your left. Got all that?”

Noah nodded, as best he could.

“I hope you do,” Nathan said. He took a step back, smiled and straightened his clothing as if the two of them had just been engaging in some mutual, spirited roughhousing. “To quote a good friend of mine,” he added, on his way to the door. “If they’re gonna call this treason anyway, we might as well make the most of it.”

“Wait,” Noah said.

“Enjoy your dinner,” Nathan said. “The meat loaf ain’t much, but I think you’ll like the dessert.” With that, he left the room and resumed his walk down the hall, pushing his meal cart.

Noah closed the door and stared at the tray of covered plates on the table in front of him. He went right to the smallest of them, lifted the lid and found exactly what he was looking for inside: a lukewarm square of runny peach cobbler. He took the knife, cut down the center, and, just as he’d hoped, felt it hit something solid.

He extracted the object from the gooey syrup, took it to the sink in the bathroom, locked the door to the adjoining room, and held it under the cold running water until it was washed clean.

It was Molly’s silver bracelet.

He held it close to his eyes; maybe the words engraved there were a little more worn than they’d been before, but he would have remembered them even if they’d been gone completely.

She was alive. Whatever other message he’d been hoping for, whatever guidance he’d been seeking, this was better. Not just a plan, because a plan can be defeated. This was a foundation.

As he returned to the bedroom he remembered the key he’d been given and he pulled it from his pocket. It was wrapped in paper, and, as he unfolded it, Noah saw the simple words written there, in Molly’s familiar handwriting.

“We’re everywhere. Stay with us; I’ll see you soon. The fight starts tomorrow.”

AFTERWORD
 

“Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.”

—A
NDRÉ
G
IDE

There’s a very good reason we called this book
The Overton Window,
and it’s not just because it’s one of the techniques that Arthur Gardner uses to push his objectives. We chose this title because it’s also a technique that, to one extent or another, we just used on you. (The key difference is, I’m openly telling you that’s what I’m doing; I don’t have a hidden agenda here.) In the course of reading and thinking about this story, it’s simply my hope that you’ve spent a little bit of time entertaining ideas that you might not have considered before.

Remember, the Overton Window concept is that only the few scenarios that currently sit inside an established window of acceptable debate will be taken seriously by the public. To move the Window toward their ultimate goal, those pushing an agenda have to introduce radical ideas that fall outside of the current comfort zone. While those fringe
ideas will normally be dismissed, the Window will also be subtly nudged in their direction. This allows ideas that would’ve previously seemed unthinkable to be introduced and, eventually, even seriously considered as solutions.

Applying this concept to our story, it should be obvious that we set out to create a plot based in reality, and then we pushed it to an absolute extreme. It’s one of the intriguing potentials of this sort of fiction: When your mind suspends disbelief, it may also become more willing to consider a broader spectrum of possible outcomes to the events and agendas that are playing out around us every day.

For example, fighter pilots often use flight simulators to train for real combat. In a safe environment, these simulators force pilots to consider a confluence of events that would otherwise seem ridiculous, like dual engine failure while being shot at and simultaneously having to land on an aircraft carrier in thirty-foot seas. It’s extreme, but it works. Many pilots who’ve been through a hair-raising mission in a live war zone come out saying that it wasn’t nearly as bad as what they’d faced in the simulator.

This book is your simulator. It’s unlikely that we’ll face anything close to the challenges that Noah and Molly are up against. But, after experiencing their scenario in its fictional setting, maybe it will become a little easier to have deeper conversations about the important forces that are actually at work in the real world.

As I told you at the outset, while I certainly used a lot of dramatic license, this story is loaded with truth. But facts can easily be manipulated, and that’s why we are including this section. I want you to decide for yourself exactly what is fact, what is
based
on fact, what is a common belief possibly based on a
distorted
fact, and what is complete fiction. Don’t stop at my sources; find your own. That way, you can determine where your own Overton Window should be located as we continue to debate what kind of America we want to live in.

And remember, this list is only a starting point. If a passage or a
statement in the book intrigued you but isn’t specifically mentioned here, take a minute and type some key words into your favorite search engine. (Try “KFC UN Security” from Chapter 17, for example …) You might be surprised at where your search will lead you.

—gb

In the Prologue, Eli Churchill mentions to Molly’s mother (did you pick up on whom he was speaking to?) that, in the late summer of 2001, Donald Rumsfeld announced that the U.S. government could not account for $2.3 trillion dollars. That actually happened. The date was September 10, 2001. A day later, some missing money (even trillions of it) didn’t seem quite so important anymore.

Rumsfeld announces $2.3 trillion unaccounted for on September 10, 2001:
“Defense Department Cannot Account For 25% Of Funds— $2.3 Trillion,”
CBS News,
January 29, 2002,
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml

See also:
A video of the
CBS News
segment,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kpWqdPMjmo

A small side note: As you read this scene, if you were wondering what a phone booth was doing out in the desert in the middle of nowhere, this is an interesting location that actually existed until fairly recently. Google “Mojave phone booth” to learn more.

In Chapter 3 we are presented with a government memo outlining the “Growing Threat of Domestic Terrorism.” This memo was, of course, was modeled after the real-life memo issued by the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) that caused an uproar because of its over-generalizations on who might be a dangerous militia member.