chapter 6 - Setup

SETUP

While Sammy drank cup after cup of coffee given to him by Connolly, the Chief spoke for hours utilizing diagrams and charts to explain the plan, but Sammy only heard its essence. The President would appoint a commission to investigate the doings of the Central Intelligence Agency. In order to minimize the already onerous demands placed upon the commission, staff personnel were to be enlisted to do most of the footwork or, rather, the paperwork. The Company’s people located in the FBI, NSA and the White House, among other places would recommend that Sammy a/k/a Paul Kalvin Johnston be appointed as the coordinator of the project. Kalvin’s current job was at the National Security Agency where he was a staff analyst translating and analyzing messages, memoranda, and other communications all over the world.

The NSA would not object to Kalvin’s appropriation but, rather, take it as a pat on the back for raising such a dedicated young man. The director of special operations at the NSA, Henry Moss, would recommend to the National Security Advisor Admiral John Geraghty, who would recommend to the President that Kalvin, this bright young star, be considered for the liaison position in the White House as special assistant to the Chief of Staff. Kalvin would get the position and would brief the Chief of Staff and the President once each day until the investigation was over. If the investigation dragged on, it would be arranged that Kalvin would, for the purposes of this commission, be reporting directly to the President of the United States, becoming, in essence, a "top white house aide." Kalvin would continuously meet with the President not only to discuss where the investigation was headed but where they wanted the investigation to head. All this time, Kalvin would be reporting back to the Company who would provide instructions on how to thwart the investigation; however, Kalvin would have to report carefully as all aspects of his life would be monitored carefully. In addition, Kalvin would have to be diligent in directing the investigation away from the CIA and the Company so it would not be necessary to carry out his final and, hopefully, unnecessary mission.

If Kalvin needed to carry it out, he would receive a package in the mail from Renfro Sales Corporation enclosing a catalog of merchandise. On page 349 of the catalog would be a small packet of what would appear to be a grainy substance. This substance would probably be Scordin B, an antispasmodic related to atropine but twelve times more powerful. A small amount of this drug, sprinkled in the President’s coffee or on his food would cause what appeared to be a massive heart attack within ten hours. Placed in an early evening snack or drink, the President would die in his sleep, apparently of natural causes. Better yet, traces of this drug would not be found, via toxicological testing, in the President’s bloodstream. Any post-mortem finding would be of congestive heart failure.

With the Chief Executive’s pre-existing, but unpublicized, heart problems death would be instantaneous and the country would be in mourning for the first President since FDR to die in the White House of natural causes. "While the Vice President will continue the investigation when sworn into the Presidency, it will have lost its momentum and be easily deflected. After then, the investigation should peter out and the Company’s activities will not see the light of day," Connolly concluded.

"How can you be so sure that the Vice President won’t push the investigation harder?"

"Because the Vice President is one of our men."

"What!" Sammy bolted up right in his chair, stunned by the revelation.

Connolly smiled, enjoying the fact that he was keeping his young protégé in suspense. "I know I don’t have to tell you this is highly confidential but only myself, Patterson, the Vice President and, now, you know this. Vice President Gilroy is only 45 years old. He was recruited by Patterson fresh out of Harvard Law School where he finished first in his class. We found him through a recruiter very much like your own Bennett Armstrong. Funds were funneled to him so that he was able to run for a state Senate seat in his home state of Mississippi. With these more than sufficient funds, he was able to beat the incumbent senator and he embarked on his political career. As you know, in ten years, he became one of the most popular senators the state of Mississippi had ever seen. When he turned 35 we decided that he should run for Congress. Again, with more than sufficient funds he again beat the incumbent and became one of the youngest senators ever elected to Congress. He, however, quickly made his own name for himself in the Senate, eventually winding up on the Senate Committee on Intelligence."

"I assume he was placed there the same way I’ll be placed in the White House."

"Correct."

"Incredible." Even though Sammy was privy to the reach of the Company’s tentacles, he was never amazed at how often he was surprised. Whenever he drew an arbitrary line that he thought indicated the lengths to which the Company would go, Patterson and Connolly always seemed to cross it.

"I told you. We have people everywhere. Back to the story. By the time this young man made it to the Senate, he was already popular with the electorate. In fact, his election was one of the local elections that was covered by the networks on election day because Gilroy had made a name for himself nationally by being a vocal pro-choice candidate. When he got elected and moved to D.C. it appeared as though he did not remember to whom his allegiances lie. When he got appointed to the Committee and we approached him he told us, categorically, that he would not divulge the information obtained on the Committee, especially since a great deal would be coming from us anyway. We did not press the issue further. Eventually, he came around." The Chief said no more, waiting for Sammy to make the connection that he knew the young man was capable of.

"Jane Webber?" Sammy asked.

"Jane Webber," Connolly replied matter-of-factly. Damn, this kid was good.

Sammy did not need to be told the story over again. In 1970, Geoffrey Gilroy, freshman senator from Mississippi, 38 years old, gets engaged to Jane Webber, 31, graduate of the Columbia University School of Journalism and, at the time, assistant to the Press Secretary of the President of the United States of America. He was from a middle class family, strictly blue collar. She was White Anglo Saxon Protestant all the way. However, they soon became the darlings of the Beltway. At informal occasions when they were able to let their guard down they would be seen holding hands, laughing, dancing and enjoying themselves in whatever they did. Their positions put them into contact with the members of the working press who quickly plastered their pictures in the society columns and ‘people pages’ of the local area newspapers. Soon United Press International picked up on the story and the rest was history. They were interviewed together on national television by David Frost and appeared on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In on the same show that Richard Nixon, her ostensible employer, was on. While Jane’s position kept her out of the public eye, (officially) Geoff’s position pushed her right back into it. Soon weekend newspapers around the country were carrying their story and when they became engaged, then President Nixon threw them a lavish engagement party out of his own funds in the Rose Garden. The event was televised on the networks, much to the dismay of the respective presidents of the news divisions, but the Gilroy-Webber steamroller could not be stopped. Gilroy’s career blossomed and so did Webber’s when she left public office to join the American Broadcasting Company’s News Division as its top news anchor.
Webber could be seen every day going up against Chet and David and reporting on her fiancé. Gilroy could be seen on the news at least twice a week giving speeches on the floor of the Senate. His continued good fortune was topped off by the plum promotion to the Chair of the Senate Committee on Intelligence.

All went well for approximately three months until the bad news came. Webber’s light plane, a Cessna, that she was piloting developed mechanical trouble and crashed into Chesapeake Bay. During her final descent the air traffic controllers heard her declare an emergency and state more than once she had lost control of the plane. Her voice could be heard in the Dulles control tower until the radio blacked out at the moment of the crash. In the final instant, all that could be heard were her screams.

A nation mourned. The funeral was telecast by all three networks, pre-empting the soap operas normally on in the middle of the day. President Nixon delivered the eulogy for his former employee, "a woman with courage and conviction to do and say what she believed in." What made the accident easy for Sammy to remember was the cover of Life magazine, one of its last issues. On the cover was a close-up photograph of Gilroy, in black and white, his eyes covered by one hand and his mouth set in a horrific grimace. This photo, taken by an eager young photographer with a hidden camera, won numerous awards, including a Pulitzer Prize, and was widely circulated for years. That issue of Life Magazine is now a collector’s item.

Connolly took up the story. "After the accident, the investigation began. FAA investigators, at the order of the President, sifted through what could be found of the remains of the aircraft many dozens of times. Unfortunately, the wreckage was strewn out over the Bay and could not be totally recovered, making a reconstruction difficult, if not impossible. In the informal report the FAA stated that while they could not rule out foul play, they could not prove it either. It was thought that the sudden loss of control without prior indications was out of the ordinary but, hey, you know, it had happened before. When the formal report was issued there was no mention of foul play. Besides the President and his top aides, the informal report was seen by freshman senator Geoff Gilroy. After reading the report, Gilroy knew he had to cooperate with Patterson.

"In fact, his unflagging cooperation lasted so many years that he was rewarded by Patterson with the Vice Presidential nomination on the ticket with now President Jenkins, then the Governor of the State of Ohio. Jenkins, too, savored his own political limelight and the combination of the two was unbeatable and they slid right into office in one of the largest landslides in political history. Gilroy has cooperated to this very day." In fact, Gilroy’s Vice Presidency, thus far, was unlike any of his predecessors. He took an active role in political issues, forcing his own political agenda, and did not merely take the President’s place whenever the latter did not wish to be bothered with attending a minor diplomatic function.

"He cannot, however, help us in this affair. He must be completely aligned with the President in this matter. If he were to speak out against the President he would be relegated to largely ceremonial functions and lose his usefulness to us. This would be devastating. In addition, if information is leaked from the Commission he may be linked to it if he is vocal in his opposition. Therefore, we need a nobody. In this case, you."

"Thanks." Sammy’s sarcasm was thick.

The Chief ignored the barb. "You will need to be extra careful on this one. To illustrate the importance of this assignment, you will be receiving further instructions in the next few days. Go directly back to your apartment, stopping nowhere, unless you wish to rent a plethora of your goddamned videos, and remain there for the next forty eight hours. You will be contacted at that time."

"By whom," Sammy queried.

"None less than James Lee Patterson himself."