Sammy showed up at the Washington Monument at precisely quarter to noon. He wanted to be able to scope out the situation and to determine whether or not there was any surveillance around the monument. He thought, correctly, that with Patterson leaving his stronghold he would undoubtedly be followed. He sat at one of the newly furnished benches surrounding the base of the monument, his eyes searching the grounds for Patterson's protectors. He didn't find them and, quite frankly, didn't expect to since Patterson surrounded himself with the best. He decided to use up his remaining time before the Director’s appearance by reading the latest on the presidential panel.
Unfolding the paper to page one, he read the headline,
FIRST APPOINTMENT MADE TO CIA PANEL
President Walter Jenkins' press secretary Roger Davies announced today that the first appointment to the now‑called CIA panel will be freshman Senator Joseph Humphreys (D‑NY). Senator Humphreys, a first term senator, was previously the District Attorney for Albany County, New York. Previous to his election as District Attorney, Humphreys was a third generation police officer with the Albany Police Department and it was during this time that he went to Albany Law School, graduated with honors and became an Assistant District Attorney, quickly rising through the ranks to head the homicide bureau and then running for election on his record. "We believe that this first appointment highlights the President's promise to the American people to investigate all acts of malfeasance within the CIA," Davies said in a prepared statement. "Senator Humphreys' able law‑enforcement background will enable the Presidential panel to focus its energies on investigating the activities of the CIA that has so concerned the President in a time‑efficient manner."
So, Sammy thought as he looked up to see if Patterson showed up yet, maybe he could find out information from his friend, Bill. He'd have to look into this. But not now. In good time. When the time was right. He continued to read and his eyes jumped out at the name in the next paragraph.
Senator Humphreys' office was ecstatic at the appointment. In a prepared statement from the Senator's offices in Albany, New York, Humphreys' top aide, William Williams, said, "While Senator Humphreys is only a first‑term senator, he feels he could retire tomorrow and be complete; however, to do so he would not fulfill his mandate to his constituents. Having spent most of his life in the law enforcement world Senator Humphreys will brook no compromise in uncovering any evidence of wrongdoing and bringing any wrongdoers to account for their crimes against the state."
So much for Bill helping out, he thought.
Many on Capitol Hill agree with this assessment; however, there are many detractors. Senior Senator Richard Cadbury (R‑Wy) often a critic of the President's, but one of the loudest supporters of the CIA panel said from his Washington office, "This is pure window dressing. A freshman senator. I don't think there is much that can be accomplished by this man, no matter how many years in law enforcement he has. If he doesn't know his way around Congress, he won't get anything done."
Sammy's reading was interrupted by a large shadow looming over the paper. He looked up to see the Director staring down at him.
"Punctuality," he said. "I like that. You never cease to please me." Despite the beautiful weather this late spring day, with clear skies and temperatures in the low seventies, the Director was bedecked in his usual outfit of dark wool suit, raincoat and hat. Nothing, Sammy thought sarcastically, like remaining inconspicuous. "Do you mind if I sit down with you on this lovely bench? You do know that this bench probably cost $10,000 given our government's antiquated bidding systems." He sat, without waiting for a response. "Do you know that in communist countries a bench like this would probably cost $200 to buy. That's the beauty of that system. Probably the only one. But think about it. Do you think that we would be in this position we find ourselves in if we were living in a truly prosperous country. I think not. The more prosperous we are the less critical the populous will be." Although the last thing Sammy wanted to hear was the incessant, incoherent ramblings of this man, he merely listened quietly in order to avoid an outburst, such as the one he had prompted earlier.
"How come people line up in communist countries for rolls of toilet paper that they pay $5 for?"
"That's because the government holds onto the supplies. If we cut the federal deficit we would have true supply and demand and we wouldn't be in the fix we're in today." He paused and lazily looked at the surroundings, his eyes finally resting upon Sammy. "Well, I could talk economics all day long with you but we have more important things to talk about. Let's walk."
They got up and started walking along the boundary of the reflecting pool. They did not talk for several minutes as they admired the spring day. They appeared to be two friends merely out for a walk, even looked like father and son enjoying a special moment between themselves.
Sammy was the first to break the silence. "Why do you want me to do this?" he asked with a measure of chagrin in his voice.
Patterson's sneaky grin was all the answer Sammy needed but Patterson answered anyway. "Because my young friend, if this presidential panel is allowed to continue the CIA will cease to exist, plain and simple. Let me tell you what will be found. There are documents, mind you not many, but they do exist, that show the Company's complicity in many domestic operations."
"How could those things exist? Why would they be documented?"
"Because in many instances the operations were carried out with the full knowledge and consent of the President of the United States. Nixon and Johnson had an especially fruitful field day in this area. It came to be pattern and practice. While we maintained secret files, the staffs of the Presidents would cover their asses with memos regarding the operations in true Washingtonian fashion. True, no executive orders were ever issued but enough hard digging and the memos are found. And, due to my foresight the memos are carefully worded and have been placed in innocuous files, totally unrelated to operations. As has been explained to you the only thing that can stop the momentum of this panel is something of such epic proportion that the country's attention will be diverted."
"The President." It was a statement, nothing more.
"Yes. I wish there were some other way to do it. I personally like the President. He has something a President hasn't had for a long time, high moral character. He's squeaky clean. Personally, I'd rather have you terminate that fucking Lambert Wardeck. Never have I had the displeasure of knowing such a sneaky son of a bitch as that Chief of Staff. And I've known them all. Unfortunately, I do believe that the majority of the country feels the same thing about Wardeck. So, if we got rid of him nothing would change. There'd probably be parties here in Washington to celebrate." He started to cackle at this thought.
He continued. "From here on in, you are Paul Kalvin. We have established records going way back. I'm sure Connolly filled you in and gave you the appropriate documents to examine. You only have today to read the materials over. You have a meeting scheduled for nine in the morning with Lambert himself."
"Tomorrow morning? That's not enough time to memorize the file. It's gotta be three or four inches thick."
"Five inches, to be exact." He stared at Sammy, his coal black eyes gleaming. "Don't bullshit me now, Samuel." His voice was ice‑edged. "I've read your file. Yes, your file. Did you think we wouldn’t have a file on you. Did you think we just picked you up off the street. No, you were not approached until we had a full profile on you. When we were satisfied, Connolly called Armstrong and had him recruit you. But have a file on you we do. We have information from Dr. Feintuch, remember him. You only met him once but he thought you were something very out of the ordinary. He felt you had a computer for a brain that needed to be tamed. He felt that you were lying to gain attention and the very lies you even thought of showed great potential. When Bennett Armstrong first noticed your potential in college, we searched your room. We even found your notebooks."
Sammy sat speechless, uncomprehending. He knew what he was hearing but could not believe it. "What?"
"Haven’t you been listening to what I said? Did you think we take a recruit without doing a background investigation? Come on. Well, anyway, as I was saying, we found these notebooks, some obviously many years old, nothing current, but, oh boy, what did it show us. To the untrained eye, it showed a pathological liar in training. What our company psychs saw, however, was someone with a computer for a brain, someone with the ability to be a chameleon, change personalities and adapt to any situation. And that's something we hadn't had for a long time. We scooped you up faster than anyone before. Of course, we didn't rave about you before we signed you. Your asking price might've gone up.” He laughed aloud at his own joke. “Of course, we would have paid it, but you've made up the difference quite tremendously, haven't you?"
"Yeah, I guess I have."
"And I'm very glad that you've decided to stay on after this assignment. You won't regret it."
Sammy turned abruptly and faced Patterson. "Well, I'd better be going. I have some reading to do." With that, he turned and walked away. Patterson shouted something after him but he didn't hear it and couldn't care less.
Later that afternoon, as Sammy started to read his new dossier, he thought, morosely, that he would be unable to enlist the assistance of his friend Bill Williams. If Humphreys was as gung‑ho as the papers reported, even if Sammy wanted to turn state's witness, he might be unable to do so. No, he thought, Bill would have to wait. He turned to the file and opened it.
Paul Kalvin was 23 years old, grew up on Long Island, where his parents still lived. Edith and Charles Kalvin were real people. He called information for the 516 area code and sure enough they lived in Cedarhurst, New York, the hub of Long Island's fabled Five Towns. They were most likely Company fronts used for deep background. Charles was a stockbroker for the huge investment firm of Perry, Hobson & March. He was 55 years old and had been with the firm since he graduated from Brooklyn College 34 years earlier in 1948. He made over one million dollars a year and lived in the back of town on the water in a sprawling ten bedroom Tudor style house that he purchased in 1958 for $200,000. It was now estimated to be worth over $5,000,000. His wife, Edith, lived to spend his money in the exclusive shops that lined Central Avenue, the main thoroughfare of Cedarhurst, and lucky for Charles, she couldn't spend all of what he made, so successful he was. But she came close once or twice.
Paul had a sister, Emily, aged twenty, who would be entering her senior year of college in the fall. She was a business major at the State University's Buffalo campus and hoped to go into retail management when she graduated.
Paul, for his own part, had eschewed attempts by his father to get him with a position with Perry Hobson upon his graduation from Georgetown University, where he double majored in Political Science and Business. Rather, he decided to take a position as a government research analyst with the National Security Agency. His acumen led him to a group leader position in intelligence, monitoring activities of the intelligence community worldwide.
Kalvin had no need for his father's line of work because of the trust fund his father established when he was an infant. Some twenty plus years later he was financially independent and did not need to work at all.
Charles Kalvin, despite his financial status, sent his children to public schools as he felt that this was where the best education was obtained. Paul and his sister went to the Number 5 school on Cedarhurst Avenue, the Lawrence Middle School on Broadway and Lawrence High School off Peninsula Boulevard. He drove to high school in a restored 1970 Mach 1 Mustang that he found rotting in a junkyard. He still drove that car to work from his apartment in Georgetown, having maintained it in excellent condition since having it restored in 1978. After graduating high school, Paul attended Georgetown University where he was a double major in Political Science and Business.
He had three aunts, one of whom he maintained constant contact as she also lived in the Five Towns. The other two aunts, on his father's side, lived in Brooklyn and he really didn't have the time to visit them; however, he was close to his father's brother, who lived three thousand miles away in Pomona, a suburb of Los Angeles. His cousins also lived on Long Island and when he was in town his mother would set up dinner inviting his aunt, her sister, and the cousins, her sister's children. His cousins were older than him and sometimes treated him as they would a younger brother. This pissed him off to no end. Many times he'd fight with his mother about her inviting them to dinner. When he came home, he'd tell her, he wanted to spend time with his parents, especially his father, whose sense of humor and overall lack of seriousness Paul had inherited.
His uncle, that is his father's brother, the one who lived in Pomona, worked in his own business selling silk flowers, which sold nowhere in the world except Southern California, La-La Land, in which it was a cottage industry. He had previously worked in swap meets, where he sold everything from cowboy hats (which sold phenomenally well since J.R. Ewing was shot) to used records, a market that his uncle knew would never die, despite the invention of cassettes.
His other uncle, the one married to his mother's sister, recently retired from the garment industry where he sold, of all things, boxes. "Fashions may come and go," he'd say, "and I've seen some doozies, but everybody will need boxes no matter what people are wearing." As goofy as he was, he was right and made a fortune selling boxes.
Paul's interests lie primarily with playing basketball and watching movies. If someone cared to check the computer records of the video store near his apartment, Vinnies's Video, they would see that he rented two or three videos a night, primarily action movies or comedies, although he had nothing against a good drama. Never, though, had he rented a musical, not even a good one like Guys and Dolls.
He played basketball at a local schoolyard every few days with some guys from the neighborhood. Just a quick game of pickup but he enjoyed it especially as it had a slightly different cast of characters every time he played.
He was seeing a girl that he had met at a Baltimore Orioles game. Her name was Betsy Rowan. She was twenty‑two years old and graduated from Duke University in December of 1981, having completed her studies in less than the allotted time. It turned out that she was a low‑level researcher at the NSA, who got her job through an uncle who worked in the State Department. She and Paul had being seeing each other exclusively for two months and considered themselves a couple. They had gone away for a week to a resort in Cancun. That week had been glorious. They made love, swam, laid in the sun, drank and made more love. Betsy was pushing for a commitment this early in the relationship and Paul was seriously considering it.
Sammy stopped reading. He'd wing the rest of it, like he'd done in the past. He shook his head. Betsy Rowan. He couldn't be lucky enough to have his own Betsy, could he. Well, he didn't want to think about it. He got up to pee. When he returned to his reading, he laid his head down to rest and shifted into a confused slumber.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Chapter 7 - Patterson
Sammy did not remember passing through the sales floor and only had a dim recollection of hailing a cab. His first coherent thought came when he awoke from a deep sleep upon his bed still clad in the clothes he wore in his meeting with Connolly. Christ, he thought, what time is it. Looking over at the red numeral digital clock on his nightstand he saw that it was nine in the morning. 9 am. Dammit, that was the time of his meeting with Connolly which lasted until nearly three in the afternoon. Shit, assuming he got home around 4 p.m., which he wasn’t sure of at all, he probably slept close to seventeen hours.
He got out of bed still groggy from a combination of stress, jet lag and oversleep. He stripped off his clothes as he walked around his apartment leaving little piles of garments in the bedroom and hallway. He noticed that his suit was unusually wrinkled and made a mental note to bring it in to be dry cleaned. He put on a full pot of coffee and decided that he would go to the corner video store for a little while so that he would have movies to watch to pass the time until tomorrow.
He stepped into the shower and turned the water on. He set both taps equally so that the initial burst of water would be cold but not freezing. This, he always felt, was a better tonic than coffee to disperse the mental cobwebs that covered his brain. And, invariably, as it did today, the water shocked him out of his groggy mood. Once sufficiently awakened, he increased the hot water to a comfortable level and began to lather up. Soaping his body was a cleansing experience in more ways than one. While making his body presentable he also used the opportunity of his showering solace to think. Today, he thought about the orders the Chief had given him. He simply did not believe he could accomplish it. The target was totally out of the realm of reason and the probability odds were certainly not in his favor. The President. He shuddered at the thought of it. Chesterton, DePasquale and Eastman were hard enough and they did not have the security detail afforded to Jenkins. Even if he could do it he would not get out of there alive. He had no idea what to do and he had no one to whom he could turn. All of his close friends, as well as his parents thought he worked part time for a sales company at night and was a government researcher by day, making decent money, but nothing great. Little did they know that he was paid very well for each of his assignments and could boast (if there was anyone he could even talk to) that he was able to retire right now and not work another day in his life. In fact, this job alone would pay him $5,000,000 if accomplished successfully. That was the key. Accomplished Successfully. If the job’s not done, no payment is made. Of course, if the job was not done, he’d probably be dead. He felt as though he was nothing more than a cheap Mafia thug. Except hit men in the Mafia just followed orders and did not care whom the target was. Why couldn’t he? Why did he have to have a conscience all of a sudden.
He stopped thinking and let the water course all over his body. Turning the shower massage on, he turned his back to the nozzle in the hopes that the pulsating streams of water would ease the tension in his neck and back. He didn’t think it would. Nevertheless, he stayed under the spray for fifteen minutes, decreasing the cold water and letting the now very hot water ease his tension. He stayed that way until the water started to cool off of its own volition.
Stepping out of the shower he grabbed the towel, which hung from a cheap plastic hook attached to the back of his bathroom door, and began to towel his now pinkish skin off. Still slightly wet he padded down the hallway to his bedroom, leaving little wet footprints to mark his trail, and went to the bureau to get out his clothes. After putting on his Jockey underwear, he walked back through the hallway into the kitchen and poured himself some coffee from the full pot he made. While drinking his coffee and reading one of his Newsweeks, he realized that he had no food in the apartment. Shit, he thought, he’d have to stop and get some food when he went for videos. He nevertheless went to the refrigerator, this time to see if it needed cleaning. Opening the door he was surprised not only to find it cleaned, but stocked with milk, bread, eggs, cream cheese, butter, american cheese and peanut butter and jelly. He didn’t remember asking Mrs. Gettinger, his landlady, to get his groceries for him. Usually he’d give her a few days’ notice that he was coming home on a particular day and she would stop off and get the food he wanted. “Strange,” he thought aloud. “I don’t remember calling her. Well, I must have. That’s the only way it could have got there. I guess the last couple of days have been hairy and I must have forgotten. I gotta remember to keep my head on straight.”
Deciding to throw caution to the forewinds he prepared himself a four egg cheese omelet with toast and cream cheese. The eggs went down deliciously with the tall glass of milk he poured for himself. Still feeling unusually hungry he prepared himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The peanut butter was the crunchy kind that he preferred. He poured himself another glass of milk to drink with the pb&j as, in his opinion (but he believed it to be scientific fact), milk was the only solvent known to man that would dissolve peanut butter from the roof of his mouth.
After eating, he poured his third cup of coffee and looked at the clock on the wall above the sink. Ten-thirty, it read. He figured that he get dressed in a little while and go out about eleven o’clock to get some videos when the store opened. He figured he’d be able to rent about five movies to get him through the day and evening. He was thinking about what to rent when the phone rang. That’s odd, he thought. No one knows I’m here. Maybe its Mrs. Gettinger calling to see if the groceries were okay.
He picked up the receiver of the cordless phone he possessed, a luxury that even his parents could not afford. “Hello,” he said.
“Sammy Johnston, please,” the male voice on the other end of the line replied.
“Speaking.”
“Good Morning, Samuel.” Only one person called him Samuel and got away with it.
“Mr. Patterson.”
“Yessir. Can’t fool you. You’re the best. I know. I picked you. I only picked the best.” The voice was pure New York. Rapid fire delivery, with the full blown New York accent that one automatically assumes is appended to each person from the New York Metro area. James Lee Patterson was no exception to the rule. A third generation New York City policeman, he took an opportunity to join the Federal Bureau of Investigation shortly after World War II ended. This was the time of Hoover and the Bureau, he envisioned, would offer him further advancement than his patriarchal hometown police force. He worked closely with the agent in charge of the office and participated in many sensational arrests. To his credit, he was seen as a man whose dogged persistence got the job done. Unlike many of the others in the Bureau that did not have his “cop’s nose” as he liked to call it, if he felt that someone was guilty of a crime and he knew it, yet didn’t have the evidence to arrest, he’d find it, whether real or manufactured, and make it stick. This ability, which was shunned by most of his colleagues, brought him to the attention of J. Edgar himself, who felt that this was a person he wanted in the top hierarchy of his Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Patterson quickly found himself put in charge of the Omaha, Nebraska field office, then the Dallas Texas field office and then back to the New York office, only this time as Special-Agent-in-charge. After ten years as S-A-C, he was summoned to Washington, D.C. where Hoover personally offered him the Deputy Director position. Not being married ( and never having done so) made the decision very easy to make. He immediately accepted the position and moved to Washington, where he served as the Deputy Director for two years. When the then head of the CIA, Nelson Broils, died of a heart attack while engaging in connubial joy with his secretary on his desk. Hoover, wanting to have his own man running the sister agency so he could, in fact, run both, recommended to President Eisenhower that Patterson be named to the post. Eisenhower readily agreed (leaving some to wonder whether or not Hoover had anything on the President in his secret files) and Patterson was reluctantly but readily confirmed by the Senate.
Much to the chagrin of Hoover, however, Patterson became his own boss shortly after taking charge of the Central Intelligence Agency, rebuffing any attempts by the head of the FBI in meddling in his agency’s affairs. In addition, while many knew, or suspected, of Hoover’s secret files, no one knew of Patterson’s. And Patterson, while emulating his mentor in the gathering of compromising information that could prove useful later on, took it a step further and raised it to an art form. However, unlike Hoover, Patterson never made any veiled threats about using the information nor did he ever actually use the information. He gathered it in case he needed to use it but had never done so. In fact, he developed the moniker “Gentleman Jim” because while most people knew of his ability to gather information, all knew that he wouldn’t use it unless pressed. No one had dared to press him and, therefore, he strove to be as courteous to as many people as possible, even those who dared criticized him. When the CIA was subject to minor Congressional hearings in the late sixties and Patterson himself got into a heated debate with the Senator questioning him, he was later quoted as saying “Well, he has his job to do and I mine. As long as we shake hands at the end of the day, that’s all that matters to me.” But no one ever doubted that Patterson was ruthless enough to go all the way to do some act so outrageous that everyone would stand up and take notice. I was this background that Sammy was dealing with.
Confused, Sammy asked, “Sir, may I ask a question?”
“Certainly, Samuel.”
“Weren’t you supposed to call me tomorrow?” This question was met with a loud bray of laughter.
“Sir?”
“Yes, Samuel?” More laughter.
“Why are you calling me today instead of tomorrow?”
When the laughter subsided, Patterson replied, deadly serious, “Because, Samuel, today is tomorrow.”
“What are you talking about, Sir?” Why the hell, Sammy thought, does this asshole always have to talk in riddles?
“Did you think you could stay in your apartment for forty-eight hours straight? We didn’t think so. In fact, we think that you were going to leave your apartment and take in some of this lovely weather we’re having, weren’t you?”
Sammy didn’t reply. “Weren’t you,” Patterson shouted, startling Sammy.
“As a matter of fact, I was going to go down to the corner, rent some videos and be back within thirty minutes.”
“So you can’t be trusted, can you?” Patterson’s voice was lyrical and sarcastic.
“Yessir, as a matter of fact I ca be trusted. I just thought it would be good therapy to get my mind off the next assignment by getting some diverting entertainment. In fact, the Chief recommended it.”
“You thought so, did you? Well, let me tell you. When we, when I, give an order I expect it to be obeyed without question to the letter. Do you understand what I am saying?”
“Yessir.” Timidly.
“That’s better, Samuel. Don’t disappoint me again, like your old chief, Richardson, did. Splendid man. I wonder whatever happened to him.”
Well, that answers that question, Sammy thought ruefully.
“Samuel, now I’m surprised at you,” Patterson said sardonically.
“Sir, I don’t follow.”
“‘Today is Tomorrow.’ Don’t you know what that means?”
“Yes sir, that you’ve moved the schedule up a day.”
“No. Think again,” was the reply.
Sammy froze. Today is tomorrow. He walked with the cordless phone into the bedroom and looked at his watch which had not only a date function but told the day of the week as well. Shit. He didn’t sleep for fourteen hours. He slept for close to forty-one hours. “Today is tomorrow” he said numbly into the phone.
“There you go, Samuel. Bet you had to look at that Rolex we bought you before you were sure. See, we can’t take chances. We didn’t want anyone to know you were in town.”
Sammy knew then that he had been drugged. “The coffee in Connolly’s office.”
“You got it, Samuel. I knew you were good.”
“Why? And what about the groceries my landlady left? Did you leave them? Why?”
“Because we know you better than you think. We knew you’d disobey orders and we wanted to prevent an infraction, no matter how minor. The assignment you will be going on is so sensitive that the rules must be followed. Usually, the punishment is more sever, but we do like you Sammy. You are an extraordinary asset and I’m not going to let one infraction ruin your career.” Patterson paused for effect. “Of course, you’re not going to let this happen again.”
“No sir.”
“As far as your groceries are concerned, consider it with our compliments for jobs well done.”
“Thank you sir. I’d been trying to catch up on my sleep anyway.” He had to move the receiver away from his ear because of the now near hysterical laughter from the other end.
“That’s the spirit, Samuel. Now that we’re friends again I want to see you at precisely noon at the base of the Washington monument.” He hung up.
“Thank you and fuck you Gentleman Jim,” Sammy replied to the closed line.
Several miles away, in Patterson’s office, the lab technician reported Sammy’s last comment. Patterson just smiled, thanking himself for giving Sammy that Rolex.
He got out of bed still groggy from a combination of stress, jet lag and oversleep. He stripped off his clothes as he walked around his apartment leaving little piles of garments in the bedroom and hallway. He noticed that his suit was unusually wrinkled and made a mental note to bring it in to be dry cleaned. He put on a full pot of coffee and decided that he would go to the corner video store for a little while so that he would have movies to watch to pass the time until tomorrow.
He stepped into the shower and turned the water on. He set both taps equally so that the initial burst of water would be cold but not freezing. This, he always felt, was a better tonic than coffee to disperse the mental cobwebs that covered his brain. And, invariably, as it did today, the water shocked him out of his groggy mood. Once sufficiently awakened, he increased the hot water to a comfortable level and began to lather up. Soaping his body was a cleansing experience in more ways than one. While making his body presentable he also used the opportunity of his showering solace to think. Today, he thought about the orders the Chief had given him. He simply did not believe he could accomplish it. The target was totally out of the realm of reason and the probability odds were certainly not in his favor. The President. He shuddered at the thought of it. Chesterton, DePasquale and Eastman were hard enough and they did not have the security detail afforded to Jenkins. Even if he could do it he would not get out of there alive. He had no idea what to do and he had no one to whom he could turn. All of his close friends, as well as his parents thought he worked part time for a sales company at night and was a government researcher by day, making decent money, but nothing great. Little did they know that he was paid very well for each of his assignments and could boast (if there was anyone he could even talk to) that he was able to retire right now and not work another day in his life. In fact, this job alone would pay him $5,000,000 if accomplished successfully. That was the key. Accomplished Successfully. If the job’s not done, no payment is made. Of course, if the job was not done, he’d probably be dead. He felt as though he was nothing more than a cheap Mafia thug. Except hit men in the Mafia just followed orders and did not care whom the target was. Why couldn’t he? Why did he have to have a conscience all of a sudden.
He stopped thinking and let the water course all over his body. Turning the shower massage on, he turned his back to the nozzle in the hopes that the pulsating streams of water would ease the tension in his neck and back. He didn’t think it would. Nevertheless, he stayed under the spray for fifteen minutes, decreasing the cold water and letting the now very hot water ease his tension. He stayed that way until the water started to cool off of its own volition.
Stepping out of the shower he grabbed the towel, which hung from a cheap plastic hook attached to the back of his bathroom door, and began to towel his now pinkish skin off. Still slightly wet he padded down the hallway to his bedroom, leaving little wet footprints to mark his trail, and went to the bureau to get out his clothes. After putting on his Jockey underwear, he walked back through the hallway into the kitchen and poured himself some coffee from the full pot he made. While drinking his coffee and reading one of his Newsweeks, he realized that he had no food in the apartment. Shit, he thought, he’d have to stop and get some food when he went for videos. He nevertheless went to the refrigerator, this time to see if it needed cleaning. Opening the door he was surprised not only to find it cleaned, but stocked with milk, bread, eggs, cream cheese, butter, american cheese and peanut butter and jelly. He didn’t remember asking Mrs. Gettinger, his landlady, to get his groceries for him. Usually he’d give her a few days’ notice that he was coming home on a particular day and she would stop off and get the food he wanted. “Strange,” he thought aloud. “I don’t remember calling her. Well, I must have. That’s the only way it could have got there. I guess the last couple of days have been hairy and I must have forgotten. I gotta remember to keep my head on straight.”
Deciding to throw caution to the forewinds he prepared himself a four egg cheese omelet with toast and cream cheese. The eggs went down deliciously with the tall glass of milk he poured for himself. Still feeling unusually hungry he prepared himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The peanut butter was the crunchy kind that he preferred. He poured himself another glass of milk to drink with the pb&j as, in his opinion (but he believed it to be scientific fact), milk was the only solvent known to man that would dissolve peanut butter from the roof of his mouth.
After eating, he poured his third cup of coffee and looked at the clock on the wall above the sink. Ten-thirty, it read. He figured that he get dressed in a little while and go out about eleven o’clock to get some videos when the store opened. He figured he’d be able to rent about five movies to get him through the day and evening. He was thinking about what to rent when the phone rang. That’s odd, he thought. No one knows I’m here. Maybe its Mrs. Gettinger calling to see if the groceries were okay.
He picked up the receiver of the cordless phone he possessed, a luxury that even his parents could not afford. “Hello,” he said.
“Sammy Johnston, please,” the male voice on the other end of the line replied.
“Speaking.”
“Good Morning, Samuel.” Only one person called him Samuel and got away with it.
“Mr. Patterson.”
“Yessir. Can’t fool you. You’re the best. I know. I picked you. I only picked the best.” The voice was pure New York. Rapid fire delivery, with the full blown New York accent that one automatically assumes is appended to each person from the New York Metro area. James Lee Patterson was no exception to the rule. A third generation New York City policeman, he took an opportunity to join the Federal Bureau of Investigation shortly after World War II ended. This was the time of Hoover and the Bureau, he envisioned, would offer him further advancement than his patriarchal hometown police force. He worked closely with the agent in charge of the office and participated in many sensational arrests. To his credit, he was seen as a man whose dogged persistence got the job done. Unlike many of the others in the Bureau that did not have his “cop’s nose” as he liked to call it, if he felt that someone was guilty of a crime and he knew it, yet didn’t have the evidence to arrest, he’d find it, whether real or manufactured, and make it stick. This ability, which was shunned by most of his colleagues, brought him to the attention of J. Edgar himself, who felt that this was a person he wanted in the top hierarchy of his Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Patterson quickly found himself put in charge of the Omaha, Nebraska field office, then the Dallas Texas field office and then back to the New York office, only this time as Special-Agent-in-charge. After ten years as S-A-C, he was summoned to Washington, D.C. where Hoover personally offered him the Deputy Director position. Not being married ( and never having done so) made the decision very easy to make. He immediately accepted the position and moved to Washington, where he served as the Deputy Director for two years. When the then head of the CIA, Nelson Broils, died of a heart attack while engaging in connubial joy with his secretary on his desk. Hoover, wanting to have his own man running the sister agency so he could, in fact, run both, recommended to President Eisenhower that Patterson be named to the post. Eisenhower readily agreed (leaving some to wonder whether or not Hoover had anything on the President in his secret files) and Patterson was reluctantly but readily confirmed by the Senate.
Much to the chagrin of Hoover, however, Patterson became his own boss shortly after taking charge of the Central Intelligence Agency, rebuffing any attempts by the head of the FBI in meddling in his agency’s affairs. In addition, while many knew, or suspected, of Hoover’s secret files, no one knew of Patterson’s. And Patterson, while emulating his mentor in the gathering of compromising information that could prove useful later on, took it a step further and raised it to an art form. However, unlike Hoover, Patterson never made any veiled threats about using the information nor did he ever actually use the information. He gathered it in case he needed to use it but had never done so. In fact, he developed the moniker “Gentleman Jim” because while most people knew of his ability to gather information, all knew that he wouldn’t use it unless pressed. No one had dared to press him and, therefore, he strove to be as courteous to as many people as possible, even those who dared criticized him. When the CIA was subject to minor Congressional hearings in the late sixties and Patterson himself got into a heated debate with the Senator questioning him, he was later quoted as saying “Well, he has his job to do and I mine. As long as we shake hands at the end of the day, that’s all that matters to me.” But no one ever doubted that Patterson was ruthless enough to go all the way to do some act so outrageous that everyone would stand up and take notice. I was this background that Sammy was dealing with.
Confused, Sammy asked, “Sir, may I ask a question?”
“Certainly, Samuel.”
“Weren’t you supposed to call me tomorrow?” This question was met with a loud bray of laughter.
“Sir?”
“Yes, Samuel?” More laughter.
“Why are you calling me today instead of tomorrow?”
When the laughter subsided, Patterson replied, deadly serious, “Because, Samuel, today is tomorrow.”
“What are you talking about, Sir?” Why the hell, Sammy thought, does this asshole always have to talk in riddles?
“Did you think you could stay in your apartment for forty-eight hours straight? We didn’t think so. In fact, we think that you were going to leave your apartment and take in some of this lovely weather we’re having, weren’t you?”
Sammy didn’t reply. “Weren’t you,” Patterson shouted, startling Sammy.
“As a matter of fact, I was going to go down to the corner, rent some videos and be back within thirty minutes.”
“So you can’t be trusted, can you?” Patterson’s voice was lyrical and sarcastic.
“Yessir, as a matter of fact I ca be trusted. I just thought it would be good therapy to get my mind off the next assignment by getting some diverting entertainment. In fact, the Chief recommended it.”
“You thought so, did you? Well, let me tell you. When we, when I, give an order I expect it to be obeyed without question to the letter. Do you understand what I am saying?”
“Yessir.” Timidly.
“That’s better, Samuel. Don’t disappoint me again, like your old chief, Richardson, did. Splendid man. I wonder whatever happened to him.”
Well, that answers that question, Sammy thought ruefully.
“Samuel, now I’m surprised at you,” Patterson said sardonically.
“Sir, I don’t follow.”
“‘Today is Tomorrow.’ Don’t you know what that means?”
“Yes sir, that you’ve moved the schedule up a day.”
“No. Think again,” was the reply.
Sammy froze. Today is tomorrow. He walked with the cordless phone into the bedroom and looked at his watch which had not only a date function but told the day of the week as well. Shit. He didn’t sleep for fourteen hours. He slept for close to forty-one hours. “Today is tomorrow” he said numbly into the phone.
“There you go, Samuel. Bet you had to look at that Rolex we bought you before you were sure. See, we can’t take chances. We didn’t want anyone to know you were in town.”
Sammy knew then that he had been drugged. “The coffee in Connolly’s office.”
“You got it, Samuel. I knew you were good.”
“Why? And what about the groceries my landlady left? Did you leave them? Why?”
“Because we know you better than you think. We knew you’d disobey orders and we wanted to prevent an infraction, no matter how minor. The assignment you will be going on is so sensitive that the rules must be followed. Usually, the punishment is more sever, but we do like you Sammy. You are an extraordinary asset and I’m not going to let one infraction ruin your career.” Patterson paused for effect. “Of course, you’re not going to let this happen again.”
“No sir.”
“As far as your groceries are concerned, consider it with our compliments for jobs well done.”
“Thank you sir. I’d been trying to catch up on my sleep anyway.” He had to move the receiver away from his ear because of the now near hysterical laughter from the other end.
“That’s the spirit, Samuel. Now that we’re friends again I want to see you at precisely noon at the base of the Washington monument.” He hung up.
“Thank you and fuck you Gentleman Jim,” Sammy replied to the closed line.
Several miles away, in Patterson’s office, the lab technician reported Sammy’s last comment. Patterson just smiled, thanking himself for giving Sammy that Rolex.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
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."
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."
Thursday, November 17, 2005
chapter 5--PLANS
PLANS
Sammy sat, speechless, for what seemed like an eternity. He wasn’t sure of what he had heard, but if had heard what his brain was computing that he had then, he knew, he was surely going to hell. The room moved about him in slow motion causing him to place his hand on Connolly’s desk in order to steady himself. “Kill the President of the United States” he said in a monotone, saying it aloud to make sure that he heard it correctly. “Kill the President of the United States,” he repeated. The words rang in his ears. He felt his face flush and his ears get hot. His stomach churned and his bowels loosened. The Chief could not help but notice Sammy’s physical state.
“Sammy.” No response. “Sammy.” A flicker in his eyes and then back to earth.
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said and became silent again. After a few moments he said, quietly but firmly, “Are you crazy? Kill the President? I can’t kill the President. You can’t kill the President. I can’t kill the President,” he repeated. “Do you understand what you are suggesting? Third world countries kill their Presidents. We don’t. I can’t do this.” He got up and started pacing the room, back and forth while the Chief sat and absorbed this unusual, but expected, tirade. “You are talking about the most heinous crime ever committed. This is not 1963. An investigation will be conducted and it will be conducted by a stronger person than Earl Warren. History will not repeat itself. Who did it will be discovered this time. There will be no conspiracy, no cover up. And I have the most to lose. I will not do it.”
The Chief looked at Sammy for a long time after he finished. Softly, he said, “If you don’t do it, then you will definitely have the most to lose.”
Sammy lost his composure. He screamed, “What the fuck does that mean?? What are you going to do, kill me? Make it look like a suicide and leave a note written in my script by the boys in handwriting expressing my remorse over the past killings and paint a picture for the world to see of a lonely Senior Vice President of Marketing who killed to fulfill his psychotic agenda.”
The Chief just smiled. “That’s why we like you the best, Sammy. We hadn’t even thought of terminating you. No, we thought your pain would be created more subtly. For instance, we know everything there is to know about your parents, Eleanor & Richard...”
“You fucking son of a bitch. If you do anything to them....”
Now it was the Chief’s turn to yell. “What? What would you do if we wanted to do something to them? Who the fuck do you think you are. We could kill them but we won’t. We could ruin their careers, though. Your mother, a successful Long Island Realtor. Your father, a successful lawyer. They’re doing pretty well for themselves with a combined annual income over $250,000. How about we get them involved in stock manipulation and insider trading? We know they’ve done extremely well in the stock market, better than most. We have people all over the place. What do you think will happen if one of them drops documentation off with the FBI at 26 Federal Plaza in New York showing that your parents had inside information. Why, your parents would be immediately arrested, of course. Now, let’s see. Their bank accounts would be frozen and their house would be taken from them. By the time they got out of jail they’d be penniless and old. And it would work, too. There aren’t too many insider trading cases being prosecuted these days, but the old man wants to step up activity in this area by the mid to late eighties.”
“You wouldn’t” It was said as a question.
“Or maybe we can lay some evidence down to show that your old man stole money out of his firm’s Clients Trust account. What do you think he could do if he got disbarred at the age of 55. Or maybe we plant some evidence that your mother engaged in discriminatory selling practices. Her career would be gone as well.”
“You wouldn’t.” Again, but this time weaker.
“You’re probably right. I like your suicide scenario much better.” The Chief’s eyes were cold blue pools of ice devoid of emotion. “Framing your parents could be beaten by a top-notch defense attorney. It’s not foolproof. Neither is yours, just think of Lee Harvey in 1963, but it comes close to perfect. If we killed you as you described it would bring a lot of heat down on Renfro Sales, and that’s something we don’t want. But still, it’s a workable plan. That’s why we like you so much. You have the capability to adapt yourself to any situation.” He paused for a few moments. Neither man spoke. “So, do you help us or do you become a front page headline on the New York Times?” Sammy didn’t respond.
The Chief broke the silence. “You have what it takes to rise to the top in this organization. That’s the truth. We’re talking about a career decision here and you have to make it. Fuck all of the assholes in the world that say ‘it’s only a job.’ Bullshit. That ain’t true here. You make your decision, just realize that you’re making a life-and-death career decision. Just don’t think that if you say no, you’ll be able to walk out of here alive.”
Again, Sammy sat, speechless. His face flushed and beads of sweat began to drip down his forehead making rivulets towards his eyes. His armpits and back were sweaty to the point where his shirt was soaked. He couldn’t kill the President, but he knew he couldn’t die. He would stall for time. “You’ve left me no alternative,” he said quietly. “And I see now that this will not be my last assignment because you’d never let me leave the Company, am I right?”
“Yes, you are.”
“Then I want a Section Chief spot and I want to be your Deputy Chief as well as your successor. That’s the price you pay.”
“Ordinarily, we don’t negotiate. But given your assignment, I have been given the latitude to negotiate. Consider it done.”
“So, what’s the plan.”
Sammy sat, speechless, for what seemed like an eternity. He wasn’t sure of what he had heard, but if had heard what his brain was computing that he had then, he knew, he was surely going to hell. The room moved about him in slow motion causing him to place his hand on Connolly’s desk in order to steady himself. “Kill the President of the United States” he said in a monotone, saying it aloud to make sure that he heard it correctly. “Kill the President of the United States,” he repeated. The words rang in his ears. He felt his face flush and his ears get hot. His stomach churned and his bowels loosened. The Chief could not help but notice Sammy’s physical state.
“Sammy.” No response. “Sammy.” A flicker in his eyes and then back to earth.
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said and became silent again. After a few moments he said, quietly but firmly, “Are you crazy? Kill the President? I can’t kill the President. You can’t kill the President. I can’t kill the President,” he repeated. “Do you understand what you are suggesting? Third world countries kill their Presidents. We don’t. I can’t do this.” He got up and started pacing the room, back and forth while the Chief sat and absorbed this unusual, but expected, tirade. “You are talking about the most heinous crime ever committed. This is not 1963. An investigation will be conducted and it will be conducted by a stronger person than Earl Warren. History will not repeat itself. Who did it will be discovered this time. There will be no conspiracy, no cover up. And I have the most to lose. I will not do it.”
The Chief looked at Sammy for a long time after he finished. Softly, he said, “If you don’t do it, then you will definitely have the most to lose.”
Sammy lost his composure. He screamed, “What the fuck does that mean?? What are you going to do, kill me? Make it look like a suicide and leave a note written in my script by the boys in handwriting expressing my remorse over the past killings and paint a picture for the world to see of a lonely Senior Vice President of Marketing who killed to fulfill his psychotic agenda.”
The Chief just smiled. “That’s why we like you the best, Sammy. We hadn’t even thought of terminating you. No, we thought your pain would be created more subtly. For instance, we know everything there is to know about your parents, Eleanor & Richard...”
“You fucking son of a bitch. If you do anything to them....”
Now it was the Chief’s turn to yell. “What? What would you do if we wanted to do something to them? Who the fuck do you think you are. We could kill them but we won’t. We could ruin their careers, though. Your mother, a successful Long Island Realtor. Your father, a successful lawyer. They’re doing pretty well for themselves with a combined annual income over $250,000. How about we get them involved in stock manipulation and insider trading? We know they’ve done extremely well in the stock market, better than most. We have people all over the place. What do you think will happen if one of them drops documentation off with the FBI at 26 Federal Plaza in New York showing that your parents had inside information. Why, your parents would be immediately arrested, of course. Now, let’s see. Their bank accounts would be frozen and their house would be taken from them. By the time they got out of jail they’d be penniless and old. And it would work, too. There aren’t too many insider trading cases being prosecuted these days, but the old man wants to step up activity in this area by the mid to late eighties.”
“You wouldn’t” It was said as a question.
“Or maybe we can lay some evidence down to show that your old man stole money out of his firm’s Clients Trust account. What do you think he could do if he got disbarred at the age of 55. Or maybe we plant some evidence that your mother engaged in discriminatory selling practices. Her career would be gone as well.”
“You wouldn’t.” Again, but this time weaker.
“You’re probably right. I like your suicide scenario much better.” The Chief’s eyes were cold blue pools of ice devoid of emotion. “Framing your parents could be beaten by a top-notch defense attorney. It’s not foolproof. Neither is yours, just think of Lee Harvey in 1963, but it comes close to perfect. If we killed you as you described it would bring a lot of heat down on Renfro Sales, and that’s something we don’t want. But still, it’s a workable plan. That’s why we like you so much. You have the capability to adapt yourself to any situation.” He paused for a few moments. Neither man spoke. “So, do you help us or do you become a front page headline on the New York Times?” Sammy didn’t respond.
The Chief broke the silence. “You have what it takes to rise to the top in this organization. That’s the truth. We’re talking about a career decision here and you have to make it. Fuck all of the assholes in the world that say ‘it’s only a job.’ Bullshit. That ain’t true here. You make your decision, just realize that you’re making a life-and-death career decision. Just don’t think that if you say no, you’ll be able to walk out of here alive.”
Again, Sammy sat, speechless. His face flushed and beads of sweat began to drip down his forehead making rivulets towards his eyes. His armpits and back were sweaty to the point where his shirt was soaked. He couldn’t kill the President, but he knew he couldn’t die. He would stall for time. “You’ve left me no alternative,” he said quietly. “And I see now that this will not be my last assignment because you’d never let me leave the Company, am I right?”
“Yes, you are.”
“Then I want a Section Chief spot and I want to be your Deputy Chief as well as your successor. That’s the price you pay.”
“Ordinarily, we don’t negotiate. But given your assignment, I have been given the latitude to negotiate. Consider it done.”
“So, what’s the plan.”
Chapter 4-Recovery
RECOVERY
Sammy's parents were in a state of shock they had never before experienced. Sammy's mother could not stand by herself without help and Sammy's father could not perform even the most routine functions. On his many trips to the cafeteria to purchase a cup of black coffee for himself and his wife to share he often could not summon the energy or thought processes to go through his change and sort out the fifteen cents necessary to purchase the cup. On half of the occasions, after being helped by the cashier to come up with the change, Sammy's father would forget the cup of coffee he sought to purchase.
The doctor, however, was more upbeat. While he could not rule out neurological damage, he was pretty certain that this would not occur. He based this on the fact that while the scalp lacerations were both extensive and severe, there was only a minor hairline fracture of the skull and tests run already did not show any brain damage. However, further tests were necessary and would need to be taken over a long period of time, especially since neurological damage might not manifest itself for quite some time as in many youths who suffer head trauma the effects remain quiescent for many years. He still needed care for the deep cuts and lacerations he received all over his body. While he was lucky that he not nicked any major arteries or broken any bones, he suffered cuts over 60% of his body.
Sammy, however, was still in a coma and, this, three days after the accident. "I think you'll find that this is quite normal, especially in cases of such severe head trauma."
"But what about the blood," asked Sammy's father. "There was so much of it."
"That's quite normal. Due to the close proximity to the brain and the carotid artery most head wounds bleed profusely. It's quite normal", the doctor replied cavalierly, quite obviously waiting for an opportunity to depart.
"Doc, this is my son we're talking about. I'd appreciate you be generous with your time and not giving us the bum's rush."
"I am sorry about your boy's condition, but you must understand that I have many patients who have worse conditions,” he said as he checked his watch for the tenth time in the past minute. “I am happy to speak with you at any time, perhaps after hours, but now I must press on."
"You'll talk to me when I want you to talk to me," Sammy's father yelled, grabbing hold of the doctor's collar. At the moment it appeared that Sammy’s father was going to deck the doctor, a white-uniformed nurse appeared to the right frantically clutching at the doctor's arm.
"Doctor," she yelled, "Come quick. It's the Johnston boy." At that Sammy's father froze and turned white. A moment later, he was running towards Sammy's room fearing the worst. Sammy's mother, previously unable to ambulate without assistance, was running towards the room with the speed of Mercury. The doctor brought up the rear.
Entering Sammy's room, the three of them froze. Sitting up and grinning, albeit groggily, was Sammy. Confused by his surroundings, he was looking around the room in an attempt to jog his memory to determine how he ended up here. Upon seeing his parents, his grin turned into a full-fledged groggy smile, his eyelids still at half-mast. His parents both burst into tears and rushed to the bed. "Hi guys," Sammy said lazily. He yawned, "why'd you bring me here."
Grabbing and hugging Sammy, his parents started crying harder, but this time there was an edge of relief in their sobs. Summoning his energy, Sammy's mom said, "You hurt yourself, baby, but you're going to get better. We're going to get you the best medical treatment and you're going to get better. I promise."
"Okay." With that, Sammy laid back down, turned over and went to sleep. The doctor, seeing the parents' worried faces start anew said, "Do not worry. He's exhausted. Let him sleep. You can wait here if you'd like but you look pretty exhausted yourselves. If you want to go home, I'll make sure you are called to come here, when he wakes up."
Sammy's parents were of one voice. "We'll wait here," they said in unison and then hugged each other fiercely as the doctor and the nurse made their departure.
Sammy slept and slept and slept but when he woke he was full of energy. Despite his awakening and no matter how much he racked his brains in response to his parent's questions, he couldn't remember what happened. He couldn't even remember what he was doing before every thing went black. When his parents told him he was jumping from a running start and he went through the storm door, he still drew a blank. His last memory was of the handball game and resting in the park. His parents pressed no further and neither did Sammy. All of them were only concerned that Sammy was getting better.
Days stretched into weeks and weeks stretched into months. Even to the doctor's surprise Sammy's recovery was nothing short of miraculous. Sammy was back at school in September and had been well enough to complete his studies over the summer so he would not be left back. All of his classmates were happy to see him, even treating him like royalty for having been through such an ordeal.
While Sammy appeared perfectly normal, his parents noticed small, otherwise imperceptible changes in him. Before his accident, Sammy was what his father called a "straight-shooter". He would never tell a fib, never a white lie, never shade the truth, even if it meant being punished for something he'd done wrong. When his teacher sent a note home saying that Sammy was unprepared for class, Sammy would tell the truth and confess, hoping that his plea that "it will never happen again" would work. It usually did.
The first time Sammy's father noticed a change was when the teacher sent home a note stating that she wanted to see Sammy's parents regarding cheating on an exam. Sammy's parents spoke with Sammy who said that he didn't cheat on a test but it was, rather, a classmate who was cheating on his test. Sammy said that the test was in Social Studies and that he knew all the answers because he stayed up late to study for it the previous night. What struck his parents as strange was that they went out to dinner at the Sizzler and Sammy was asleep by nine o'clock. From eight to nine Sammy sat with his parents and watched an episode of 'Laugh-In.' When Sammy's parents told him what he did the previous night, Sammy yelled "You're wrong" and stormed out of the room. Sammy's parents decided not to press the issue further but did agree that an immediate appointment with the teacher was necessary.
These instances of lying became more and more frequent. He began speaking of an uncle who was in the movies and of potentially being in the movies himself because good kid actors were hard to find. One particularly interesting story he floated about was that he was part Italian and his original name was Guiseppe Giovannini. His parents were pure Irish and there was no way this could be true. No one believed this and many of his friends disassociated themselves from him.
His parents were frantic, so much so that they felt that psychiatric help was in order. They didn't blame Sammy but felt that his bouts of lying were caused by his accident; however, Sammy would not admit that anything was wrong.
His parents sent him to Dr. Bernard Feintuch, a noted psychiatrist specializing in neurological disorders. Very often, he explained, many cases of head trauma result in some manifestation of neurological disorder. While most cases result in some form of epilepsy, he told Sammy's parents, there are those cases in which behavioral changes are noted. This seemed to fit Sammy's condition and the doctor, most intrigued by the case, agreed to see Sammy.
Sammy's first visit came eight months after his accident. Dr. Feintuch started with seemingly casual conversation in order to get Sammy comfortable with the process. "Tell me a little bit about yourself," he asked.
"I'm nine years old and I am in the fourth grade at the Kennedy elementary school."
"What do you like to do?" Dr. Feintuch asked.
"Not much nowadays. A lot of my friends don't play with me anymore."
"Why is that, do you think?"
"I don't know."
"Do you have any friends?"
"Well, my best friend is Davey McCoy. He was my best friend before the accident and he is my best friend now. He was the one who found me after the accident and called the ambulance. We play together all the time."
"What do you play?"
"G.I. Joe and my erector set and my Tonka trucks."
"Did you do this before the accident?"
"Yes."
"What else did you do before the accident?"
"I used to jump."
Dr. Feintuch sat up in his chair, a look of befuddlement passing over his face. "What?" he asked, almost laughing.
"I used to jump."
"What do you mean 'jump?'"
"Well, I like to imagine that I'm an Olympic hurdler and I would pretend that my front steps were the hurdles. I would jump over them."
"How often would you do this?"
"Before the accident, I jumped a few hours every day."
Wide-eyed the doctor asked, "a FEW hours a day?"
"Yeah." Nothing else.
"What about now?"
"I want to, but my mom won't let me."
“Why won’t she let you jump?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have absolutely no idea?”
“Well, I must have gotten hurt because one day I remember jumping for my friend Davey, but the next thing I knew I was in the hospital. I ask my parents about it but they won’t tell me about it.”
“Your parents haven’t told you about your accident.”
“No. Can you tell me?”
“I think you should discuss it with your parents. I’m sure they’ll tell you.” Changing subjects, the doctor asked, “How are things in school?”
“Fine.”
“How are the other kids treating you”
“Fine. They were super nice to me when I got out of the hospital.”
“Really,” exclaimed Dr. Feintuch. “How do they treat you now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are they nice to you. Are they not nice to you. Things like that.”
“”They treat me like I’m a regular kid, I guess.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, some of the kids are not so friendly anymore.”
“Do you know why?”
“No.”
"I see." He decided to change his course now. "Sammy, your parents tell me that you've been having problems lying about some things."
Sammy started to yell loudly. "No, I haven't. That's a lie. I want to leave."
"Sammy, your parents are not here right now. They've gone out to do some shopping. They told me they'd be back at eleven o'clock, when your appointment is over."
"You're lying." In fact, the doctor was lying. Sammy's parents were in the waiting room outside the office. He was hoping Sammy wouldn't check. He was a poor gambler. Sammy ran to the office door and opened it, revealing his waiting parents. They jumped up and ran to him. "I don't like this doctor. He lies. I want to go home." Sammy's father glared and the world-renowned Feintuch looked back at him, helplessly. Sammy's parents dragged Sammy out of the office without saying another word.
“Done in by a nine year old,” said Feintuch to himself.
Sammy apologized to his parents and told them that he would do his best not to lie anymore. For his parents, this was music to their ears. This was the first time that Sammy acknowledged he had a problem. They decided to work with Sammy and teach him right from wrong themselves. They felt they could do a better job of it anyway.
Sammy for his part was a cooperative student and worked with his parents to stop any lying that he was doing. However, he enjoyed lying and planned on continuing to do so. It made him feel better about himself. He wasn’t good at sports, didn’t have a lot of friends and felt alone. If he had to lie to get kids to like him better, he’d do it, but he would be more careful this time. He would, though, start anew and write down everything he said and stop making the lies outlandish. Let's face it, he thought, if you make yourself sound better, people will like you better. You just have to do it right.
And it worked, too. Although it took several months to overcome the damage he previously caused, he started making friends again. His lies were little white lies, saying he had done this or that, he had played with some new game and had done really well at it, had gone to such and such a place for dinner. Children being fickle as they are anyway were ready to accept Sammy back into the fold. His lack of lying hastened the process. Unfortunately, he had not stopped lying but had become more calculated about it. His composition notebook was filled with pages of writing catalogued by topic and with entries regarding specific lies he had told and to whom he had told the prevarication. Instead of watching television at night with his parents he spent extra time doing his homework and memorizing his notebook. At first this was a daunting task but he was soon able to grasp the information and memorize it. Further, his review of the information on a daily basis further reinforced the information into his brain. He would often pass up studying for tests if he had to pick between tests and his notebooks; however, the regimen of studying on a daily basis not only made him a better student but developed an ingrown talent that he did not know he had, a photographic memory. It’s not widely known, but only three percent of the population have the ability to remember anything that they read. Most people have heard of photographic memories and there has not been one child in all of history who has not wished that he possessed such a talent while studying for an exam, especially a history exam, where dates and places are so important. What is even less known is that unless those three percent of the individuals exercise their talent, they lose it, much the way as pugilist loses his edge when he does not go to the gym to practice.
The years passed and the little boy who had severe troubles found himself to be one of the most popular kids in school. While all the kids were starting to grow their hair long and wear denim jeans to school, Sammy preferred to dress wearing chinos, button down shirts, topsiders and keeping his hair neatly trimmed. He excelled in his classwork and constantly finished within the top five kids in class. In high school, he was elected president of the senior class and was involved in all manner of extracurricular activities.
Throughout all of his days in elementary, junior high and high school his best friend remained Davey McCoy. Davey had grown exponentially in size and was one of the largest kids in the class, perfectly suited for the football uniform he wore so well. Davey could tell when Sammy was lying but it didn't bother him because he felt that Sammy was only fibbing and telling small harmless lies that didn't matter. In addition, Davey was no small slouch in the lying area. In fact, his favorite line was "the dog ate my homework." Given the success of the high school football program, Davey's coach was able to exert pressure on the teachers to pass those football players who were marginal at best. Not that Davey was in this category, but the spillover effect was that teachers accepted his excuse and didn't bother him. Both Davey and Sammy found this amusing as both knew, and the teachers didn't, that Davey didn't even own a dog.
Despite their differences, the two of them were inseparable. They did everything together, from going out on dates and to drinking with the aid of Davey's older brother's ID card. Therefore, when it came time to select colleges they were scared with the prospect of being separated for the first time in many years. Davey, with an average of 83 and SATs of 1100 applied to all of the schools in the State University of New York system. Sammy, with his 96 average and 1450 SATs, applied to four schools: Harvard, Yale, Princeton and his safe school, State University of New York at Albany. Sammy got accepted to all four schools and Davey got accepted to SUNY Albany, among other schools in the state system. Faced with the first separation in their lives, the boys went into a panic.
Sammy made a decision that made everyone, including parents, guidance counselors, principals, college admissions officers, and friends sit up and take notice. He rejected the offers from Harvard, Princeton and Yale and sent an acceptance letter to the State University at Albany. He felt it was a matter of loyalty. He clearly remembered when he fell out of favor in the fourth grade. Only Davey stood by him. Now, he felt, it was time to repay the favor. It was a decision that no one understood, not even his parents (although, admittedly, his dad’s bank account was grateful). Only Davey had an inkling as to what Sammy was doing, but he could still not comprehend that someone would do such a thing for him. No one had ever done anything like that for Davey McCoy. Had Sammy taken the prudent course and gone to an Ivy League school he would have had it made. As it was, it was a decision that would alter his life and was one that Sammy would later regret as it brought him into contact with Bennett Armstrong, the man who brought him into the Company.
Bennett Armstrong was the chairman of the Political Science department at Albany State. Ever since Sammy was an outspoken student in PoliSci 101 (Introduction to Political Science) Armstrong took a shine to the young man and was glad to be his mentor when the time came. To Sammy, Armstrong was a nice man who was providing educational and career guidance for him. He did not know that Armstrong was once a field agent for the CIA in Germany at the height of the cold war in the late fifties and early sixties. His mentor was none other than James Lee Patterson. When he decided to retire from active duty, Patterson allowed him to do so on the condition that he act as a scout, looking for new talent. Over the years, he had recruited 50 potential stars. None, Patterson was later heard to say, amounted to anything near young Mr. Johnston.
Meanwhile, Sammy was enjoying college life. He found that he was able to breeze through his course work and partake in the fun the Albany nightlife had to offer. He spent many evenings in the Rathskellar, the University operated bar that was located conveniently in the campus center. One dollar pitchers were the norm, even if it was such slop as Genessee Cream Ale. Getting drunk was important to Davey so it was important to Sammy and they engaged in what they referred to as their "occupation" nightly, raising drinking to an art form. It was at the Rathskellar where they met William Williams and Steve Winterbottom when, one crowded Thursday/ half price pitcher night, the four had to share a table and a fast friendship was formed over a few pitchers of beer. They spent a lot of their time at the movies, especially convenient at Albany State, which sported three movie groups, Albany State Cinema and Tower East Cinema, which showed new releases, and International Film Group, which showed the classics. Sammy found himself immersed in the movies often pretending to himself that he was the writer, producer and director of the movies by visualizing his name appearing in the credits. He further fueled his capacity for lying by being able to recall movie lines instantaneously and injecting them into conversation. By doing so, he had taken his photographic memory the proverbial step further by training his mind to recall the spoken word. By the time he got to his junior year of college he had no further use for his notebook, using, rather, his mind which acted as a computer.
His mental acuity impressed Armstrong so much that, as graduation drew near, an interview was arranged with a man named Henry Richardson who was scouting for talented graduates to work as research analysts for the government. Richardson was so impressed with Sammy that he offered him a researcher position on the spot. What with the $40,000 per year starting salary, Sammy was hard pressed to refuse. He accepted on the spot and his future was sealed.
Meanwhile, Davey had absolutely no career aspirations. Along with Steve and Bill, Davey decided to stay in Albany and find some job. Steve liked the school and the kids who went there so he got a job with the SUNY Albany Department of Public Safety. He got to act as campus security, which wasn't that bad since crime wasn't that bad. Occasionally he'd have to give a speeding ticket to someone tooling around the long roadway that circled the school or he'd have to show up at some freshman party on Colonial Quadrangle (where most of the freshmen were herded) in order to quiet down an over-rambunctious party. Davey and Bill, and even Sammy, found his job quite amusing and would often join in wild, frenetic calls of "one Adam 12, one Adam 12, a 211 in progress. one Adam 12 handle code 3." At first, Steve didn't like this but after a while he stopped snarling as he actually found it funny and often joined in the battle cry himself.
Steve’s true ambition, though, was to be an actor. He had been a drama major in college, much to the consternation of his parents. Their lukewarm reception to his choice of major quickly dissipated when they traveled to Albany to see the school’s student production of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, starring Steve as Stanley Kowalski. Not only did his parents support his career choice, but he received excellent critical reviews from local area drama critics. But he still had not yet received a professional nibble. He subscribed to Variety and traveled to New York for casting calls, but all of his trips had been in vain. His true love, however, was makeup. He was nuts about the subject and voraciously devoured articles about the masters like Rick Baker and Wally Westmore. When he wasn’t acting in a production, he was the makeup artist. He eschewed the use of pancake makeup and opted for the use of latex in order to alter one’s appearance. He was so good at what he did that he still worked on the productions after his campus security ‘gig’ so he could keep up on his skills. Little did he know he would soon get the role of a lifetime.
Davey, on the other hand, in quite typical Davey fashion, found a job in nearby Troy as the Commissioner of Sanitation. He did this by being lazy. Not being one to hit the books, he took advantage of the SUNY intern program, which placed students into the real world for a semester and gave them a full semester's worth fifteen credits for doing so. Davey, always looking for a shortcut, befriended the son of the incumbent mayor of Troy, who was a shoo-in for re-election. Davey was to be the campaign manager, a job less prestigious than the title sounded as the campaign was less real than imagined. When the Mayor was declared the winner on election night (and the local news declared him a winner just five minutes after the polls closed) he thanked his young campaign manager and declared that if Davey wanted to continue his work for the Mayor's administration as sanitation commissioner, he could do so. Davey, to the delight of the local newscasters (despite their being unawares of his slightly inebriated condition) gave the thumbs-up and the deal was struck, leading local weatherman and area fixture Howard Ware to comment "That's one lucky small fry. I wish could have been in charge of garbage when I was 22."
Bill, the quietest of the bunch, took the same internship program, but using his father's connections, was able to secure a campaign spot on the staff of then Albany District Attorney Joseph Humphreys and when that man won his election, Bill was offered the spot of chief of staff. Unlike Davey, Bill was all hard work and very little play. In Bill's instance, his only playtime came when he was with his three friends. At all other times, he did everything he could to get ahead. Some people said he was just plain mean, ruthless. Even Senator Humphreys was, at some times, taken aback by the activities of his senior administrative assistant. Nevertheless, since none of Bill's activities were overtly underhanded, he chose not to approach him, but, rather, kept an eye out for his activities. In him, Humphreys saw a young man who, troubled by something from his past, was overcompensating in the present.
Sammy's parents were in a state of shock they had never before experienced. Sammy's mother could not stand by herself without help and Sammy's father could not perform even the most routine functions. On his many trips to the cafeteria to purchase a cup of black coffee for himself and his wife to share he often could not summon the energy or thought processes to go through his change and sort out the fifteen cents necessary to purchase the cup. On half of the occasions, after being helped by the cashier to come up with the change, Sammy's father would forget the cup of coffee he sought to purchase.
The doctor, however, was more upbeat. While he could not rule out neurological damage, he was pretty certain that this would not occur. He based this on the fact that while the scalp lacerations were both extensive and severe, there was only a minor hairline fracture of the skull and tests run already did not show any brain damage. However, further tests were necessary and would need to be taken over a long period of time, especially since neurological damage might not manifest itself for quite some time as in many youths who suffer head trauma the effects remain quiescent for many years. He still needed care for the deep cuts and lacerations he received all over his body. While he was lucky that he not nicked any major arteries or broken any bones, he suffered cuts over 60% of his body.
Sammy, however, was still in a coma and, this, three days after the accident. "I think you'll find that this is quite normal, especially in cases of such severe head trauma."
"But what about the blood," asked Sammy's father. "There was so much of it."
"That's quite normal. Due to the close proximity to the brain and the carotid artery most head wounds bleed profusely. It's quite normal", the doctor replied cavalierly, quite obviously waiting for an opportunity to depart.
"Doc, this is my son we're talking about. I'd appreciate you be generous with your time and not giving us the bum's rush."
"I am sorry about your boy's condition, but you must understand that I have many patients who have worse conditions,” he said as he checked his watch for the tenth time in the past minute. “I am happy to speak with you at any time, perhaps after hours, but now I must press on."
"You'll talk to me when I want you to talk to me," Sammy's father yelled, grabbing hold of the doctor's collar. At the moment it appeared that Sammy’s father was going to deck the doctor, a white-uniformed nurse appeared to the right frantically clutching at the doctor's arm.
"Doctor," she yelled, "Come quick. It's the Johnston boy." At that Sammy's father froze and turned white. A moment later, he was running towards Sammy's room fearing the worst. Sammy's mother, previously unable to ambulate without assistance, was running towards the room with the speed of Mercury. The doctor brought up the rear.
Entering Sammy's room, the three of them froze. Sitting up and grinning, albeit groggily, was Sammy. Confused by his surroundings, he was looking around the room in an attempt to jog his memory to determine how he ended up here. Upon seeing his parents, his grin turned into a full-fledged groggy smile, his eyelids still at half-mast. His parents both burst into tears and rushed to the bed. "Hi guys," Sammy said lazily. He yawned, "why'd you bring me here."
Grabbing and hugging Sammy, his parents started crying harder, but this time there was an edge of relief in their sobs. Summoning his energy, Sammy's mom said, "You hurt yourself, baby, but you're going to get better. We're going to get you the best medical treatment and you're going to get better. I promise."
"Okay." With that, Sammy laid back down, turned over and went to sleep. The doctor, seeing the parents' worried faces start anew said, "Do not worry. He's exhausted. Let him sleep. You can wait here if you'd like but you look pretty exhausted yourselves. If you want to go home, I'll make sure you are called to come here, when he wakes up."
Sammy's parents were of one voice. "We'll wait here," they said in unison and then hugged each other fiercely as the doctor and the nurse made their departure.
Sammy slept and slept and slept but when he woke he was full of energy. Despite his awakening and no matter how much he racked his brains in response to his parent's questions, he couldn't remember what happened. He couldn't even remember what he was doing before every thing went black. When his parents told him he was jumping from a running start and he went through the storm door, he still drew a blank. His last memory was of the handball game and resting in the park. His parents pressed no further and neither did Sammy. All of them were only concerned that Sammy was getting better.
Days stretched into weeks and weeks stretched into months. Even to the doctor's surprise Sammy's recovery was nothing short of miraculous. Sammy was back at school in September and had been well enough to complete his studies over the summer so he would not be left back. All of his classmates were happy to see him, even treating him like royalty for having been through such an ordeal.
While Sammy appeared perfectly normal, his parents noticed small, otherwise imperceptible changes in him. Before his accident, Sammy was what his father called a "straight-shooter". He would never tell a fib, never a white lie, never shade the truth, even if it meant being punished for something he'd done wrong. When his teacher sent a note home saying that Sammy was unprepared for class, Sammy would tell the truth and confess, hoping that his plea that "it will never happen again" would work. It usually did.
The first time Sammy's father noticed a change was when the teacher sent home a note stating that she wanted to see Sammy's parents regarding cheating on an exam. Sammy's parents spoke with Sammy who said that he didn't cheat on a test but it was, rather, a classmate who was cheating on his test. Sammy said that the test was in Social Studies and that he knew all the answers because he stayed up late to study for it the previous night. What struck his parents as strange was that they went out to dinner at the Sizzler and Sammy was asleep by nine o'clock. From eight to nine Sammy sat with his parents and watched an episode of 'Laugh-In.' When Sammy's parents told him what he did the previous night, Sammy yelled "You're wrong" and stormed out of the room. Sammy's parents decided not to press the issue further but did agree that an immediate appointment with the teacher was necessary.
These instances of lying became more and more frequent. He began speaking of an uncle who was in the movies and of potentially being in the movies himself because good kid actors were hard to find. One particularly interesting story he floated about was that he was part Italian and his original name was Guiseppe Giovannini. His parents were pure Irish and there was no way this could be true. No one believed this and many of his friends disassociated themselves from him.
His parents were frantic, so much so that they felt that psychiatric help was in order. They didn't blame Sammy but felt that his bouts of lying were caused by his accident; however, Sammy would not admit that anything was wrong.
His parents sent him to Dr. Bernard Feintuch, a noted psychiatrist specializing in neurological disorders. Very often, he explained, many cases of head trauma result in some manifestation of neurological disorder. While most cases result in some form of epilepsy, he told Sammy's parents, there are those cases in which behavioral changes are noted. This seemed to fit Sammy's condition and the doctor, most intrigued by the case, agreed to see Sammy.
Sammy's first visit came eight months after his accident. Dr. Feintuch started with seemingly casual conversation in order to get Sammy comfortable with the process. "Tell me a little bit about yourself," he asked.
"I'm nine years old and I am in the fourth grade at the Kennedy elementary school."
"What do you like to do?" Dr. Feintuch asked.
"Not much nowadays. A lot of my friends don't play with me anymore."
"Why is that, do you think?"
"I don't know."
"Do you have any friends?"
"Well, my best friend is Davey McCoy. He was my best friend before the accident and he is my best friend now. He was the one who found me after the accident and called the ambulance. We play together all the time."
"What do you play?"
"G.I. Joe and my erector set and my Tonka trucks."
"Did you do this before the accident?"
"Yes."
"What else did you do before the accident?"
"I used to jump."
Dr. Feintuch sat up in his chair, a look of befuddlement passing over his face. "What?" he asked, almost laughing.
"I used to jump."
"What do you mean 'jump?'"
"Well, I like to imagine that I'm an Olympic hurdler and I would pretend that my front steps were the hurdles. I would jump over them."
"How often would you do this?"
"Before the accident, I jumped a few hours every day."
Wide-eyed the doctor asked, "a FEW hours a day?"
"Yeah." Nothing else.
"What about now?"
"I want to, but my mom won't let me."
“Why won’t she let you jump?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have absolutely no idea?”
“Well, I must have gotten hurt because one day I remember jumping for my friend Davey, but the next thing I knew I was in the hospital. I ask my parents about it but they won’t tell me about it.”
“Your parents haven’t told you about your accident.”
“No. Can you tell me?”
“I think you should discuss it with your parents. I’m sure they’ll tell you.” Changing subjects, the doctor asked, “How are things in school?”
“Fine.”
“How are the other kids treating you”
“Fine. They were super nice to me when I got out of the hospital.”
“Really,” exclaimed Dr. Feintuch. “How do they treat you now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are they nice to you. Are they not nice to you. Things like that.”
“”They treat me like I’m a regular kid, I guess.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, some of the kids are not so friendly anymore.”
“Do you know why?”
“No.”
"I see." He decided to change his course now. "Sammy, your parents tell me that you've been having problems lying about some things."
Sammy started to yell loudly. "No, I haven't. That's a lie. I want to leave."
"Sammy, your parents are not here right now. They've gone out to do some shopping. They told me they'd be back at eleven o'clock, when your appointment is over."
"You're lying." In fact, the doctor was lying. Sammy's parents were in the waiting room outside the office. He was hoping Sammy wouldn't check. He was a poor gambler. Sammy ran to the office door and opened it, revealing his waiting parents. They jumped up and ran to him. "I don't like this doctor. He lies. I want to go home." Sammy's father glared and the world-renowned Feintuch looked back at him, helplessly. Sammy's parents dragged Sammy out of the office without saying another word.
“Done in by a nine year old,” said Feintuch to himself.
Sammy apologized to his parents and told them that he would do his best not to lie anymore. For his parents, this was music to their ears. This was the first time that Sammy acknowledged he had a problem. They decided to work with Sammy and teach him right from wrong themselves. They felt they could do a better job of it anyway.
Sammy for his part was a cooperative student and worked with his parents to stop any lying that he was doing. However, he enjoyed lying and planned on continuing to do so. It made him feel better about himself. He wasn’t good at sports, didn’t have a lot of friends and felt alone. If he had to lie to get kids to like him better, he’d do it, but he would be more careful this time. He would, though, start anew and write down everything he said and stop making the lies outlandish. Let's face it, he thought, if you make yourself sound better, people will like you better. You just have to do it right.
And it worked, too. Although it took several months to overcome the damage he previously caused, he started making friends again. His lies were little white lies, saying he had done this or that, he had played with some new game and had done really well at it, had gone to such and such a place for dinner. Children being fickle as they are anyway were ready to accept Sammy back into the fold. His lack of lying hastened the process. Unfortunately, he had not stopped lying but had become more calculated about it. His composition notebook was filled with pages of writing catalogued by topic and with entries regarding specific lies he had told and to whom he had told the prevarication. Instead of watching television at night with his parents he spent extra time doing his homework and memorizing his notebook. At first this was a daunting task but he was soon able to grasp the information and memorize it. Further, his review of the information on a daily basis further reinforced the information into his brain. He would often pass up studying for tests if he had to pick between tests and his notebooks; however, the regimen of studying on a daily basis not only made him a better student but developed an ingrown talent that he did not know he had, a photographic memory. It’s not widely known, but only three percent of the population have the ability to remember anything that they read. Most people have heard of photographic memories and there has not been one child in all of history who has not wished that he possessed such a talent while studying for an exam, especially a history exam, where dates and places are so important. What is even less known is that unless those three percent of the individuals exercise their talent, they lose it, much the way as pugilist loses his edge when he does not go to the gym to practice.
The years passed and the little boy who had severe troubles found himself to be one of the most popular kids in school. While all the kids were starting to grow their hair long and wear denim jeans to school, Sammy preferred to dress wearing chinos, button down shirts, topsiders and keeping his hair neatly trimmed. He excelled in his classwork and constantly finished within the top five kids in class. In high school, he was elected president of the senior class and was involved in all manner of extracurricular activities.
Throughout all of his days in elementary, junior high and high school his best friend remained Davey McCoy. Davey had grown exponentially in size and was one of the largest kids in the class, perfectly suited for the football uniform he wore so well. Davey could tell when Sammy was lying but it didn't bother him because he felt that Sammy was only fibbing and telling small harmless lies that didn't matter. In addition, Davey was no small slouch in the lying area. In fact, his favorite line was "the dog ate my homework." Given the success of the high school football program, Davey's coach was able to exert pressure on the teachers to pass those football players who were marginal at best. Not that Davey was in this category, but the spillover effect was that teachers accepted his excuse and didn't bother him. Both Davey and Sammy found this amusing as both knew, and the teachers didn't, that Davey didn't even own a dog.
Despite their differences, the two of them were inseparable. They did everything together, from going out on dates and to drinking with the aid of Davey's older brother's ID card. Therefore, when it came time to select colleges they were scared with the prospect of being separated for the first time in many years. Davey, with an average of 83 and SATs of 1100 applied to all of the schools in the State University of New York system. Sammy, with his 96 average and 1450 SATs, applied to four schools: Harvard, Yale, Princeton and his safe school, State University of New York at Albany. Sammy got accepted to all four schools and Davey got accepted to SUNY Albany, among other schools in the state system. Faced with the first separation in their lives, the boys went into a panic.
Sammy made a decision that made everyone, including parents, guidance counselors, principals, college admissions officers, and friends sit up and take notice. He rejected the offers from Harvard, Princeton and Yale and sent an acceptance letter to the State University at Albany. He felt it was a matter of loyalty. He clearly remembered when he fell out of favor in the fourth grade. Only Davey stood by him. Now, he felt, it was time to repay the favor. It was a decision that no one understood, not even his parents (although, admittedly, his dad’s bank account was grateful). Only Davey had an inkling as to what Sammy was doing, but he could still not comprehend that someone would do such a thing for him. No one had ever done anything like that for Davey McCoy. Had Sammy taken the prudent course and gone to an Ivy League school he would have had it made. As it was, it was a decision that would alter his life and was one that Sammy would later regret as it brought him into contact with Bennett Armstrong, the man who brought him into the Company.
Bennett Armstrong was the chairman of the Political Science department at Albany State. Ever since Sammy was an outspoken student in PoliSci 101 (Introduction to Political Science) Armstrong took a shine to the young man and was glad to be his mentor when the time came. To Sammy, Armstrong was a nice man who was providing educational and career guidance for him. He did not know that Armstrong was once a field agent for the CIA in Germany at the height of the cold war in the late fifties and early sixties. His mentor was none other than James Lee Patterson. When he decided to retire from active duty, Patterson allowed him to do so on the condition that he act as a scout, looking for new talent. Over the years, he had recruited 50 potential stars. None, Patterson was later heard to say, amounted to anything near young Mr. Johnston.
Meanwhile, Sammy was enjoying college life. He found that he was able to breeze through his course work and partake in the fun the Albany nightlife had to offer. He spent many evenings in the Rathskellar, the University operated bar that was located conveniently in the campus center. One dollar pitchers were the norm, even if it was such slop as Genessee Cream Ale. Getting drunk was important to Davey so it was important to Sammy and they engaged in what they referred to as their "occupation" nightly, raising drinking to an art form. It was at the Rathskellar where they met William Williams and Steve Winterbottom when, one crowded Thursday/ half price pitcher night, the four had to share a table and a fast friendship was formed over a few pitchers of beer. They spent a lot of their time at the movies, especially convenient at Albany State, which sported three movie groups, Albany State Cinema and Tower East Cinema, which showed new releases, and International Film Group, which showed the classics. Sammy found himself immersed in the movies often pretending to himself that he was the writer, producer and director of the movies by visualizing his name appearing in the credits. He further fueled his capacity for lying by being able to recall movie lines instantaneously and injecting them into conversation. By doing so, he had taken his photographic memory the proverbial step further by training his mind to recall the spoken word. By the time he got to his junior year of college he had no further use for his notebook, using, rather, his mind which acted as a computer.
His mental acuity impressed Armstrong so much that, as graduation drew near, an interview was arranged with a man named Henry Richardson who was scouting for talented graduates to work as research analysts for the government. Richardson was so impressed with Sammy that he offered him a researcher position on the spot. What with the $40,000 per year starting salary, Sammy was hard pressed to refuse. He accepted on the spot and his future was sealed.
Meanwhile, Davey had absolutely no career aspirations. Along with Steve and Bill, Davey decided to stay in Albany and find some job. Steve liked the school and the kids who went there so he got a job with the SUNY Albany Department of Public Safety. He got to act as campus security, which wasn't that bad since crime wasn't that bad. Occasionally he'd have to give a speeding ticket to someone tooling around the long roadway that circled the school or he'd have to show up at some freshman party on Colonial Quadrangle (where most of the freshmen were herded) in order to quiet down an over-rambunctious party. Davey and Bill, and even Sammy, found his job quite amusing and would often join in wild, frenetic calls of "one Adam 12, one Adam 12, a 211 in progress. one Adam 12 handle code 3." At first, Steve didn't like this but after a while he stopped snarling as he actually found it funny and often joined in the battle cry himself.
Steve’s true ambition, though, was to be an actor. He had been a drama major in college, much to the consternation of his parents. Their lukewarm reception to his choice of major quickly dissipated when they traveled to Albany to see the school’s student production of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, starring Steve as Stanley Kowalski. Not only did his parents support his career choice, but he received excellent critical reviews from local area drama critics. But he still had not yet received a professional nibble. He subscribed to Variety and traveled to New York for casting calls, but all of his trips had been in vain. His true love, however, was makeup. He was nuts about the subject and voraciously devoured articles about the masters like Rick Baker and Wally Westmore. When he wasn’t acting in a production, he was the makeup artist. He eschewed the use of pancake makeup and opted for the use of latex in order to alter one’s appearance. He was so good at what he did that he still worked on the productions after his campus security ‘gig’ so he could keep up on his skills. Little did he know he would soon get the role of a lifetime.
Davey, on the other hand, in quite typical Davey fashion, found a job in nearby Troy as the Commissioner of Sanitation. He did this by being lazy. Not being one to hit the books, he took advantage of the SUNY intern program, which placed students into the real world for a semester and gave them a full semester's worth fifteen credits for doing so. Davey, always looking for a shortcut, befriended the son of the incumbent mayor of Troy, who was a shoo-in for re-election. Davey was to be the campaign manager, a job less prestigious than the title sounded as the campaign was less real than imagined. When the Mayor was declared the winner on election night (and the local news declared him a winner just five minutes after the polls closed) he thanked his young campaign manager and declared that if Davey wanted to continue his work for the Mayor's administration as sanitation commissioner, he could do so. Davey, to the delight of the local newscasters (despite their being unawares of his slightly inebriated condition) gave the thumbs-up and the deal was struck, leading local weatherman and area fixture Howard Ware to comment "That's one lucky small fry. I wish could have been in charge of garbage when I was 22."
Bill, the quietest of the bunch, took the same internship program, but using his father's connections, was able to secure a campaign spot on the staff of then Albany District Attorney Joseph Humphreys and when that man won his election, Bill was offered the spot of chief of staff. Unlike Davey, Bill was all hard work and very little play. In Bill's instance, his only playtime came when he was with his three friends. At all other times, he did everything he could to get ahead. Some people said he was just plain mean, ruthless. Even Senator Humphreys was, at some times, taken aback by the activities of his senior administrative assistant. Nevertheless, since none of Bill's activities were overtly underhanded, he chose not to approach him, but, rather, kept an eye out for his activities. In him, Humphreys saw a young man who, troubled by something from his past, was overcompensating in the present.
Friday, September 23, 2005
chapter 3
I have written a Novel. It is called LIAR. It is copyrighted. Here is chapter Three. Please provide feedback.(c) Michael Fried 1997, 2005
Chapter 3--STORM
WEATHERSHIP TANGO DELTA," were the only words that the disembodied voice on the other end of the phone spoke. They were the only words that needed to be spoken for they were the words that told Sammy that he was being activated for an assignment, in this case the final assignment of his career. He would need to make preparations to go to the nation’s capital. But first things first. Whenever Sammy received a call for an assignment it was necessary, for security reasons, for him not to go directly to Washington, D.C. but to use a circuitous route in order to avoid detection. Once the call was received he knew he would have to report to the office in precisely 168 hours. The only good thing about the week preceding an assignment was that Sammy’s trips were paid for by the Company. The bad thing, of course, was that he had a week to think about what he could potentially be assigned to accomplish. Once he flew to Chicago (during baseball season when the Cubs were in town) once to San Francisco (the Giants) and once to Paris, just because he wanted to go. This time he wanted to do something different. He decided that he would spend a full week in Alaska. He knew he always wanted to go there (he also wanted to go to Australia but didn’t need the long flight preventing him from carrying out his responsibilities) and, with the uncertainties of knowing if he’d live to ever go there on his own, he decided to make the arrangements. The next day he boarded a commuter flight from Albany to JFK and took a connecting Anchorage Airways flight from JFK to Anchorage, Alaska.
Sammy was attracted to Alaska for its splendid scenery. With 51 million acres set aside as National Park Service land, Sammy knew that there would be no shortage of sightseeing opportunities. He enjoyed the idea of going to a state that was the largest in area, but the least populated; however, once he got there he could see why the population increase in the past two years was four times the national average. The landscape was beautiful and the entire state was nearly pristine, touched by man, yet nearly untouched in many respects. It was a cold and brutal place in some areas, but he had not seen any of those places. He rented an airplane and a pilot and flew over much of Denali National Park and Mount Mckinley, the highest point in North America. Named for future President McKinley in 1896, he knew, its South Peak was first climbed in 1913. The trip wasn’t as onerous as he thought it would be because he had expected it to be much colder. It was a warm May day with temperatures hovering around a comfortable 56 degrees. He spent time hiking around the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge with a guide and toyed with the idea of renting a plane to fly past the Seward Peninsula and across the international dateline but gave up on that idea when none of the bush pilots he talked to would consider the opportunity for any amount of money. He went fishing and caught many salmon and halibut, which he had packed in ice and sent to his parents. He also met a gorgeous big-chested female eskimo named Anouk, whom he spent a large portion of the week with and took with him on his travels. One of the sites they enjoyed the most was the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park, which included tours of buildings associated with the gold rush of 1897-98. But the fun was not to last. As was his procedure on his pre-assignment trips, he had nothing more than a fling with any female he met because he never knew if he would be coming back from the assignment.
Before he knew it his time in Alaska was up. At the airport, he did not fly back on the ticket he purchased, but rather checked in at the gate and pretended to board. He told the flight attendant that he left something in the waiting area and wanted to get it. She told him to hurry up and to make sure that he held onto his boarding pass. With a brief smile he patted his jacket pocket indicating that the pass was securely on his person. He accomplished all of this as other passengers were boarding so that he would be lost in the shuffle of packing the overhead bins, making sure the items were stowed securely and performing the menial housekeeping functions of distributing magazines, pillows and blankets. Evidently, it worked as the plane left the terminal without any concern for his whereabouts.
His luggage was stashed in an airport locker and after the plane departed he retrieved it. He then proceeded back to the main terminal, luggage in hand, and purchased another ticket in cash from a different ticket agent using the assumed name of Richard Billings. He proceeded to his gate and awaited his boarding call. When the flight was called he quickly took his first class window seat. As he had no carry-on luggage he was able to stretch out comfortably. He accepted a local newspaper and that day’s New York Times and declined a glass of champagne, asking, instead, for a glass of orange juice.
Scanning the Times he noted that the lead story on the front page announced:
PRESIDENT TO FORM PANEL TO INVESTIGATE ALLEGATIONS OF WRONGDOING IN THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY
special to the New York Times
Sammy’s eyes widened at the next paragraph:
Sammy bolted upright in his seat. His hands began to get clammy and sweat started to pour from his forehead. Chesterton, DePasquale, Eastman. He was responsible for those. They were his previous assignments. He realized, like a lightning bolt hitting him between the eyes, that the President was investigating him. His breathing became shallow and labored. He felt the color draining out of his cheeks. A major storm was brewing and he was at its eye. He reached up to turn on the air vent located directly above his seat. The rush of cool air made him feel slightly better but his hopes of sleeping for the rest of the flight evaporated. He had the desire to throw the paper away and not read anymore but he couldn’t. He read on:
Sammy couldn’t read any further. He put down the newspaper but just as quickly picked it up again. He looked at the dateline. It was yesterday’s news. Was there any way the Chief knew it was going to break. There had to be. The Company was so wired into everything that it was possible there were a couple of agents elected to Congress. The thought scared him. Could his summons to D.C. be because they knew of this development and were bringing him in for "closure", a Company euphemism that he did not wish to think about. He was now fully terrified that he would be sacrificed and that his body would be turned over with forged documents indicating that he was a rogue CIA agent, operating beyond the pale of any authority extended to him. His mind swam with so many thoughts he couldn’t think straight. He was glad no one was sitting in the seat next to him witnessing his strange behavior. Had there been such a companion they might have believed that the young man sitting next to them was having a myocardial infarction. Frantically, he grabbed for and pushed the flight attendant call button.
"Yes sir, may I help you?," she said. Her name was Christine, according to her name tag.
"Yeah, I’ve changed my mind about that drink. Do you have any tequila?"
No, I’m afraid we don’t."
"Then I’ll have a Scotch. Please give me two. No ice. Just straight up." As she started to walk away, he asked, "Excuse me, do you have any Jack Daniels, instead?"
"Why, yes we do"
"Okay, two of those instead."
The drink burned his throat when he took his first swallow, but afterwards it went down smoothly and had a tremendous calming effect upon him. He decided to watch the movie that was beginning in the hopes that it would take his mind off his current predicament and help him pass the time easily. Since this was a long flight there were two movies. The first was one of those mindless comedies with a threadbare plot whose sole existence was necessary to keep all of the endless sight gags and tired one-liners coming. This one was a war movie spoof. While it wasn’t a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, watching it made Sammy relax to the point where he was even laughing at those endless sight gags and tired one-liners. He actually felt that he would be able to sleep for a while on the plane and did, in fact, doze off during the news program that was shown between the first and second movie.
When he woke up, he was calmer, but the second movie was a spy film that only served to remind him of his problem. He remembered that he had some big time problems, indeed, but felt he could deal with them if he forced some rational thought on the issue. He knew that if the Company did not want him to be safe, he would very well be the target of the investigation, but what could he do. If he ran, the Agency would dispatch an untold amount of agents to take him down. In all reality, even if he were able to keep running, he would never be able to stop. And, unfortunately, he did not have the resources to keep running. While he was paid handsomely for his efforts and had an extraordinarily large bank account for most people, not to mention a twenty three year old, his finances were not sufficient to allow him to constantly move. In addition, while he had $5,000 in cash on him presently, it was more likely than not that the Company would freeze his bank accounts, thus preventing him to obtain the funds to keep on the lam. With the Company’s strings carefully placed all over the world, internationally and domestically, it was highly unlikely that he would be safe in the FBI’s witness protection program. In fact, that would probably be the most dangerous. He could never be anonymous. The Agency could easily find out his new identity and he would be liquidated shortly thereafter. For Christ’s Sake, he was dealing with the "blackest" and most covert unit within the government. Goddamit, he had to think.
He took a deep breath. Maybe he was overreacting. Maybe he was not going to be a scapegoat. He had served the Company well and it was quite possible that they would not use him as a sacrificial lamb. Yet he could not wonder what effect his attempts at resignation had. Damn! He shouldn’t have been so stupid. He should have realized that he could never leave. That they would never let him. He should have asked for reassignment from the field to an intelligence analyst position, one of those desk jockeys that monitor threats to the nation’s (and the Company’s) security. He knew that he hadn’t asked for this previously because of his conscience. He was directly responsible for the deaths of three people and becoming indirectly responsible for future deaths was no salve. He couldn’t live with himself so he proffered his resignation. Well, hell’s bells, he thought. A dead man has no conscience. Should’ve thought of that before, Sammy. Now you can meet up with your victims in the afterlife.
He had no choice. He would report tomorrow morning and withdraw his resignation and request re-assignment to a desk position. He hoped it was not too late. If asked, he would feign ignorance of the Congressional inquiry and the Presidential panel. He would do his best to act surprised. That was one thing he was good at, maintaining a cover. No reason for them to even doubt him one bit. He’d been in Alaska for a week and it was widely known that he preferred to rent a video and watch a movie rather than watching the news. While his specific assignments may have mandated his keeping current with the news, his overall job responsibilities did not and he avoided television news programs or newspapers whenever possible.
He would carry out his last assignment, be re-assigned to a desk position and would then live the rest of his life in a cloak of anonymity, keeping his mouth shut and assisting the CIA and the Company to deflect all criticisms. He, of all people, would find a way to do so because of his intimate knowledge of the questioned activities.
His thoughts were interrupted by the announcement from the Captain. "Ladies and Gentlemen. This is the Captain speaking. We have begun our final descent into the Capital area. As we make our approach in to Dulles Airport you will be able to see the downtown D.C. area on the right hand side of the cabin. The flight crew has asked me to ask you to fasten your seat belts and make sure that your tray tables are in the upright position. I’m glad the flight has been uneventful. On behalf of the flight crew and myself we thank you for flying Trans National Airlines and hope you come back to see us again. We hope you enjoy your stay in Washington, D.C."
Sammy laughed to himself. ‘Uneventful flight’ my ass, he thought. For him, it was one of the worst flights he had ever been on.
After retrieving his luggage from the baggage carousel, he waited an interminable period of time for a taxi. When he finally got his cab, he was dismayed to see that the driver was a rancid Pakistani with little or no experience in driving in the Washington area. While wanting to fall asleep during the twenty minute cab ride, he felt very pissed off that he had to force himself to stay awake to give directions to the cabby. With the cab driver not really understanding English all too well, the twenty minute drive turned into a forty minute drive. When they pulled up to Sammy’s apartment, a faded brownstone in the Foggy Bottom section of Washington, Sammy paid the metered amount and refused to give a tip. The cab driver vehemently yelled "Fuck you."
Sammy replied quietly, " I guess I was wrong about you not knowing English." He shut the door with a bang and carried his bags up to the front stoop. After unlocking the door, he stopped to collect his mail and walked up the stairs to his apartment, which was on the second floor of the brownstone. As much as he hated the Company, he was glad that they paid for two apartments for him so he had easy accessibility. He had requested the second apartment to be in Albany so he could be close to his friends when he was not working and the Company was glad to oblige.
Friends, he thought. It was good to be with them. Davey, Steve and Bill. Wait a minute, he thought. Bill was on the staff of Senator Joseph Humphreys, a freshman senator who hailed from Schenectady. Bill’s father, a lawyer, got him an internship during college in which Bill helped manage Humphreys’ senatorial campaign. When Humphreys ousted the incumbent, Senator Paul George, Bill, through the wonderful patronage system, was proffered a high level staff position in the Senator’s office. He was given the job on graduation day, a nice present from mentor to mentee.
Maybe he could talk to Bill. If he funneled information to Bill, perhaps he could make inquiries, using the power of his office. After all, Congressional leaks were more common than holes in Swiss cheese. He’d have to look into that.
Once inside his apartment, he did not bother to unpack. He took a shower and shaved and then promptly went to sleep, setting his alarm for 6:30 in the morning. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow and slept soundly throughout the night and, as far as he could remember, he did not dream.
So well did he sleep, in fact, that he woke up fifteen minutes before the alarm went off. He turned off the alarm and made coffee. He was glad that he did not sleep until the alarm went off because if he woke up before the alarm went off and decided to sleep until it did go off, he suffered major bouts of undesired grogginess. That was something he didn’t want to experience today.
While drinking his coffee, a special Colombian brew he ordered via a catalog from the Egyptian Coffee House in Walla Walla, Washington, he went through the mail that accumulated during his two week absence. Nothing remarkable. Two issues of Newsweek, a phone bill, the cable bill and an ad for a credit card offering a low 18.7% APR. He also received an ad from a computer company hawking their wares and a catalog from an order by mail electronics company. He threw everything out but the two Newsweeks and the two bills.
After finishing his coffee, he showered and shaved and dressed in his most conservative gray suit, white shirt and paisley tie. He left his apartment at 8:30 and hailed a cab, not an easy feat given the amount of people who took cabs at this time of morning to get to work. He was lucky and got a cab within five minutes. The cab took him to an inauspicious office building on 13th Street near the National Theatre.
Entering the building, he took the elevator to the basement offices of Renfro Sales Corporation, the Company’s cover. "Nice to have you back Mr. Johnston" greeted Julie, the red-headed, big chested receptionist that was rumored to have slept with most of the guys at this place. "Mr. Renfro is expecting you."
"Thanks, Julie." Passing Julie’s desk and entering the sales floor, Sammy marveled at the cover the Company used. In fact, this was not a new feeling for him. Every time he passed through he was awed by the meticulous care the Company used to maintain the cover. Renfro Sales Corporation was a company that procured job lots of items and then sold them to various liquidation warehouses and retail stores that were located throughout the country. With the decline of the department store as the prime buying source, and people looking for a bargain, many of these stores catered to people who wanted to save a buck and began popping up all over suburban America. The dozen salesmen in cheap off-the-rack suits were actually salesman employed by Renfro totally unaware of the true nature of the operation. Their cries, actually selling items procured by Renfro, could be heard as Sammy passed through the sales floor.
"Come on, you gotta help me here."
"So what are we talking about? Two dozen grosses. Is that all?"
"Listen, I can cut a hundred bucks off the whole shipment but that’s it."
Renfro Sales Corporation was a real company with a very healthy bottom line. These salesmen were responsible for net profits of $10 million last year and this year proved to be even better. Renfro paid all of its taxes on time, gave to charities and if anyone from the Internal Revenue Service ever desired to see detailed sales records, they would be able to produce them. Of course, that eventuality had never come to pass, to Sammy’s knowledge. Renfro took less deductions than a normal corporate entity would and, therefore, the Internal Revenue Service would never audit them, lest they actually lessen the amount of taxes paid.
As Senior Vice President in charge of marketing, he was known to all of them as Harry James and they waved to him as he crossed the floor. He returned every wave with one of his own. At the end of the sales floor he came up to a set of double doors that said "Executive Personnel Only." This was a security area and it was necessary for him to push his access card into a slot to unlock the doors. Passing through them, he entered into a long corridor with an elevator at the end. Once again using his security card, he summoned the elevators by pushing the button marked "one". After a few seconds, the elevator doors opened and he walked into an area right out of a spy movie. Computers lined one entire wall, enclosed in glass sarcophagi. Banks of monitors rested against another set of walls. More monitors lay in a console located towards the middle of the floor. Glass walls with world maps on them dotted the perimeter of the room. Large Screen Television monitors were scattered throughout. Printers were located in strategic positions near the computers and monitors. The crowning achievement, however, was the glass enclosed conference room with its own set of computers, monitors, printers and maps as well as a large oak conference table that was surrounded by twenty luxuriously appointed leather chairs. The conference room was empty, for the moment, but the rest of the supermarket sized floor was busily traveled by the one hundred or so analysts monitoring various intelligence operations.
This was the heart of The Company, the ultrasecret arm of the Central Intelligence Agency created by its Director, James Lee Patterson, with his own personal funds. No one, aside from Patterson and a handful of others who reported directly to him, in official Washington knew that The Company even existed. Created in 1961, the Company was established by Patterson to operate domestically and to carry out activities that could not be handled by the CIA proper. Patterson wanted all threats to the nation’s security, no matter how trivial, monitored. He also wanted any threat to his own power base effectively eliminated with no trace. So secret was the Company’s true identity that most of the people who actually worked as analysts believed that they were working for the CIA proper. Through use of secret funds and access to the government’s highly sophisticated and encrypted computer system Patterson was able to ensure that all of his analysts were paid by official government checks like their official counterparts, although no record of them as a group ever existed. Patterson knew that the federal bureaucracy was so large that no one, but no one, would catch one or two additional personnel per federal agency. No bureaucrat performed a line by line search of personnel or inventory. All they cared about was the bottom line. Thus, it was easy to place Company employees inside various departments within the CIA, but also within other agencies of the federal government, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Labor and the Environmental Protection Agency. The last agency was the best as they had begun a massive expansion in light of the recently enacted Superfund legislation and were counting head growth in the hundreds per month.
It was never Patterson’s intention to call the secret side of Renfro Sales Corporation ‘The Company." He started referring to it as Renfro, as in ‘let’s see what Renfro can dig up’ or ‘let the boys at Renfro handle it’. Patterson’s direct subordinates merely got to the now official name by saying they had to get back to Company premises, or that the people at the Company were looking for them, and thus creating the name. Patterson did nothing to dissuade the use of the name. He reasoned that in the unlikely event that any communication from Renfro referencing ‘the Company’ was intercepted, the interceptees would assume that the CIA proper was involved. And if Patterson was questioned about it, he could open up his doors and prove that the CIA was not involved.
The current head of Renfro was George Connolly. He was Patterson’s most trusted aide and, although titularly in charge of the Company for only a short time, he had unofficially been Patterson’s pipeline to Renfro since its inception. For ten years prior to Connolly, Henry Richardson headed up Renfro and his removal had been mysterious. Most of the analysts were young and had only been around for Richardson’s tenure so they had not known the nameless man who preceded Richardson and who disappeared under even more mysterious consequences. After Richardson’s demise, Patterson installed Connolly to avoid further upheaval as Connolly was the only person Patterson trusted anywhere close to one hundred percent.
Most of the staff were analysts, monitoring transmissions from all over the globe. A small corps of elite personnel were known as The Liars, Patterson’s intelligence version of the Delta Force. Sammy was one of these elite individuals and, despite his youth and relative inexperience, was considered to be the best. The Liars were the ultimate undercover personnel, chameleons who could fit into any situation at any time. They were utilized by Patterson to infiltrate any person or organization that he felt was inimical to his self perceived best interests. Some had fit in as White House Aides (and were, to Patterson’s chagrin, named as unindicted co-conspirators some eight years ago) some had been FBI agents and some had been Congressmen. Whatever the task, the liars were best suited for the job because of their intelligence and loyalty. Not one of the Liars had ever broken rank and divulged information about Patterson and the Company. And Patterson’s strict selection criteria and generosity in terms of huge payments for assignments ensured that it would remain that way. However, none of the Liars had Sammy’s effectiveness, especially considering his short tenure with the Company. In fact, Patterson, not one to heap praise upon any of his subordinates, said that Sammy’s last two assignments had been nothing short of miraculous.
Now, Sammy passed through the floor, sidestepping people running back and forth with reams of paper in their hands or talking excitedly to other colleagues and swerving around the monitor bank workstations that were set up haphazardly on the floor until he came to a solitary door cut so precisely into the wall that one would not notice it except for the security keypad to its left. He ran his card through the slot and typed in a six digit acknowledgment code that would announce his identity to the Chief. Sammy was still amazed that the Chief operated without a secretary; however, Connolly felt the less known about him the better. None of the clerical people had ever seen him and only a handful of the analysts had ever met with him. If he required a briefing, the analysts would brief their respective section chiefs who would then, in turn, brief the Chief. He stayed in his office all day long and when he left it was by a secret passage in his office. One of the things Sammy liked to do when he was bored during a meeting with the Chief was to peruse the room to determine where the secret entryway was. To date, he hadn’t been able to find it.
Sammy heard a buzz from the security console and an unlatching sound within the door mechanism. He pushed the door inward and entered the Chief’s office. He noticed for the first time that the door was four inches thick. He heard the door close behind him and heard the noise again, indicating that the door was securely locked. There was an oversized mahogany desk with two highback Queen Anne chairs in front of the desk for the visitors as well as a luxurious brown leather couch against the far right wall. The walls were covered in mahogany from the floor to six feet high and the remaining four feet was painted a splendidly ungovernmental cream color. While there were no windows because they were underground, there was a set of expensive drapes behind the Chief’s desk that gave the impression they could be opened at any time to let the sun in. What it really hid was a large screen television capable of broadcasting everything from regular television stations to satellite broadcasts to state of the art computer generated video.
George Connolly came around his desk to greet Sammy, appearing genuinely happy to see him. "How are you, Sammy? How was your week’s vacation? Where did you go?" he asked as if he didn’t know. Yet he had hoped to be sort of a father figure towards the young man. Sammy had some, but not a hell of a lot of contact with his parents and Connolly decided to step in and mold the young man to his own ends. That was how Sammy moved from the Company’s version of the Directorate of Intelligence to the Directorate of Operations.
"Alaska" was Sammy’s reply.
"Alaska," The Chief asked, feigning polite surprise. "I can’t wait to see your expense account. Why did you go there?"
"I’ve always wanted to go there. Take a dog sled over the tundra, see the midnight sun, fall in love with a pretty Eskimo."
The Chief laughed. "Did you do and see what you wanted?"
"And more." They both laughed this time.
"Please, Sammy, sit down and make yourself comfortable." He repositioned himself behind the desk. "Are you ready for your last assignment?"
"I am, but first I’d like a favor."
"What’s that."
"I want to change my request for resignation into one for re-assignment to an analyst spot."
"No shit," the Chief replied. This time he sounded truly surprised. "When did you decide this?"
"I had the idea brewing in my head for a while now and I got to think about it more and more when I was out in the wilderness last week. I think I would miss the environment. And you seem to like my work so I thought I could be a great resource staying on as an analyst. If you’ll still have me I’ll be happy to stay on when I finish my last assignment."
"If we’ll still have you," the Chief exclaimed, getting up and coming around his desk once again. "Hell, this is the best news I’ve heard in a long while."
"Really?"
"Hell, yes. You’re the best that’s happened to the Company in a long time. You’ve accomplished things that no one else has had the capability of doing. In fact, I’ll let you in on something else. The Director was truly upset when I told him about your resignation. He said that I had unlimited authority to keep you on board. He wants me to convey to you that you can have any position within the Company that you want after you accomplish your last assignment. I didn’t even need to tell you that since you asked for reassignment without any carrot in front of you, but, goddamit, I’m so tickled pink that the offer stands." He grabbed Sammy’s shoulders. "You made my day."
"Thank you, Sir."
"Now that we’ve taken care of that, let’s get down to brass tacks about your last assignment. Have you read yesterday’s or today’s papers or watched the news on TV?" he asked as he walked around the desk to his chair.
Here it comes. I’m being given up after all, thought Sammy. Hell, here goes nothing. "No, why?"
"Well, it seems our beloved fucking president has taken a major step towards endangering America’s national security system."
"How," asked Sammy. So far, so good.
"Read for yourself." With that, the Chief tossed over copies of yesterday’s and today’s Washington Post. Sammy did his best to appear as if he never read the story before. He shook his head back and forth, feigning disbelief. He also muttered a couple of "Christs" under his breath. When he got to the part of the article regarding the suspicious deaths, he started to squirm in his seat. This was not feigned, however. This was the same reaction he had reading yesterday’s paper. Reading it again made him nervous a second time. The Post’s reporting was less genteel than the Times’ and listed the manner and cause of each suspicious death. As Sammy clearly remembered each one, he became more nervous and began to sweat. Loosening his collar, he exclaimed, "I can’t believe this."
"We’re in a very dangerous situation, here."
"You mean, I’m in a very dangerous situation."
"No, I mean we. You may have been the assassin, but here we are, a super secret arm of the CIA, established over twenty years ago by James Patterson, without Presidential or Congressional knowledge. Our sole purpose has been to carry out domestic activities in contravention of our charter. We are answerable only to Patterson and have carried out secret and illegal orders that has caused the CIA to be besieged with rumors that have upset its very existence. In fact, the only reason that the CIA has not been caught with their pants down is that there is not one shred of paper contained within any files at the CIA. All orders are issued by Patterson verbally to this office directly via a secure line. To be frank, I don’t think that anyone else within the CIA is aware of our existence."
"No one?"
"Think about it. Here we are. The world’s foremost intelligence operation. Patterson has been in charge of it for twenty five years. Twenty-five. If it hadn’t been for Hoover’s super tenure, Patterson’s longevity would’ve been unheard of. And Jimmy Lee got the idea to create us when he started accumulating evidence of activities by Presidents and Congressman to wield should there be any attempt to remove him from office. He’s been through three democrats, three republicans and now he’s on his third republican. And you know what we’ve done. Watergate, Watts, King, Malcolm X and Jack and Bobby Kennedy. We’ve precipitated all of these. What if the American public found out that we that we attempted to have one President impeached and actually had another one shot, along with his baby brother senator. Holy Shit. I don’t even want to think about it."
"You sold me."
"What would happen in the other superpowers’ intelligence communities if word of this got out. Utter chaos. It would be like gangland warfare. They would stop dealing with our agents and our ability to maintain the national security of this country would be totally compromised and that, I don’t need to tell you, is something we don’t need. You are the least of the problems. No one is going to place the blame on you or I or anyone in this office. There are contingency plans to shut down this operation without a trace so no one will discover us. But to do this will mean that that damage to America’s intelligence community would be irreparable."
"What can we do?"
"That’s where you come in. We are sending you under very deep cover into the White House to determine the status of this investigation and to report back. You will have a top security clearance and the background check will show that you are a very bright, resourceful government researcher for the NSA who has been found to possess a keen intellect and an ability to pick documents apart with a microscope. Your researcher background will be attractive to the White House as there will be volumes upon volumes of papers to go through on behalf of the panel. You will be an Assistant to the White House Chief of Staff and will be privy to all meetings regarding the panel. You will be in constant contact with President Jenkins. By the way, here is your cover. Memorize it."
With that, he tossed a five inch thick manila folder towards Sammy’s side of the desk. "Learn everything in there to the point where you become Paul Kalvin, which will be your cover, and are able to recite everything as second nature. As you report back we will determine the effectiveness of the panel. If it is not being effective, you will continue in your assignment until the panel adjourns. If the panel is effective and is coming close to the truth and there is no way for you to derail the investigation, you will have no choice but to kill the President of the United States.
"May God help us all and have mercy on our souls."
Chapter 3--STORM
WEATHERSHIP TANGO DELTA," were the only words that the disembodied voice on the other end of the phone spoke. They were the only words that needed to be spoken for they were the words that told Sammy that he was being activated for an assignment, in this case the final assignment of his career. He would need to make preparations to go to the nation’s capital. But first things first. Whenever Sammy received a call for an assignment it was necessary, for security reasons, for him not to go directly to Washington, D.C. but to use a circuitous route in order to avoid detection. Once the call was received he knew he would have to report to the office in precisely 168 hours. The only good thing about the week preceding an assignment was that Sammy’s trips were paid for by the Company. The bad thing, of course, was that he had a week to think about what he could potentially be assigned to accomplish. Once he flew to Chicago (during baseball season when the Cubs were in town) once to San Francisco (the Giants) and once to Paris, just because he wanted to go. This time he wanted to do something different. He decided that he would spend a full week in Alaska. He knew he always wanted to go there (he also wanted to go to Australia but didn’t need the long flight preventing him from carrying out his responsibilities) and, with the uncertainties of knowing if he’d live to ever go there on his own, he decided to make the arrangements. The next day he boarded a commuter flight from Albany to JFK and took a connecting Anchorage Airways flight from JFK to Anchorage, Alaska.
Sammy was attracted to Alaska for its splendid scenery. With 51 million acres set aside as National Park Service land, Sammy knew that there would be no shortage of sightseeing opportunities. He enjoyed the idea of going to a state that was the largest in area, but the least populated; however, once he got there he could see why the population increase in the past two years was four times the national average. The landscape was beautiful and the entire state was nearly pristine, touched by man, yet nearly untouched in many respects. It was a cold and brutal place in some areas, but he had not seen any of those places. He rented an airplane and a pilot and flew over much of Denali National Park and Mount Mckinley, the highest point in North America. Named for future President McKinley in 1896, he knew, its South Peak was first climbed in 1913. The trip wasn’t as onerous as he thought it would be because he had expected it to be much colder. It was a warm May day with temperatures hovering around a comfortable 56 degrees. He spent time hiking around the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge with a guide and toyed with the idea of renting a plane to fly past the Seward Peninsula and across the international dateline but gave up on that idea when none of the bush pilots he talked to would consider the opportunity for any amount of money. He went fishing and caught many salmon and halibut, which he had packed in ice and sent to his parents. He also met a gorgeous big-chested female eskimo named Anouk, whom he spent a large portion of the week with and took with him on his travels. One of the sites they enjoyed the most was the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park, which included tours of buildings associated with the gold rush of 1897-98. But the fun was not to last. As was his procedure on his pre-assignment trips, he had nothing more than a fling with any female he met because he never knew if he would be coming back from the assignment.
Before he knew it his time in Alaska was up. At the airport, he did not fly back on the ticket he purchased, but rather checked in at the gate and pretended to board. He told the flight attendant that he left something in the waiting area and wanted to get it. She told him to hurry up and to make sure that he held onto his boarding pass. With a brief smile he patted his jacket pocket indicating that the pass was securely on his person. He accomplished all of this as other passengers were boarding so that he would be lost in the shuffle of packing the overhead bins, making sure the items were stowed securely and performing the menial housekeeping functions of distributing magazines, pillows and blankets. Evidently, it worked as the plane left the terminal without any concern for his whereabouts.
His luggage was stashed in an airport locker and after the plane departed he retrieved it. He then proceeded back to the main terminal, luggage in hand, and purchased another ticket in cash from a different ticket agent using the assumed name of Richard Billings. He proceeded to his gate and awaited his boarding call. When the flight was called he quickly took his first class window seat. As he had no carry-on luggage he was able to stretch out comfortably. He accepted a local newspaper and that day’s New York Times and declined a glass of champagne, asking, instead, for a glass of orange juice.
Scanning the Times he noted that the lead story on the front page announced:
PRESIDENT TO FORM PANEL TO INVESTIGATE ALLEGATIONS OF WRONGDOING IN THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY
special to the New York Times
Washington, D.C.- President Walter Jenkins announced today that he would, based
upon a recommendation from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, appoint
a blue ribbon panel of investigators, including former judges, prosecutors and
law enforcement officials, to work with the Committee to determine if the
Central Intelligence Agency has been operating domestically in contravention of
its 1947 charter, which prohibits the CIA from carrying out any domestic
activities.
Sammy’s eyes widened at the next paragraph:
At least one congressional source has stated that the reason the panel is being
formed is the deaths of influential government and public figures in the past
several months. These include William Chesterton, Director of the Office of
Management and Budget, United States Senator Vincent DePasquale (D-NY) and movie
star Paul Eastman. All were outspoken opponents of the activities of the Central
Intelligence Agency who were attempting, through various means, to have
legislation introduced to limit the CIA’s activities with an eye towards
eventual elimination of the agency.
Sammy bolted upright in his seat. His hands began to get clammy and sweat started to pour from his forehead. Chesterton, DePasquale, Eastman. He was responsible for those. They were his previous assignments. He realized, like a lightning bolt hitting him between the eyes, that the President was investigating him. His breathing became shallow and labored. He felt the color draining out of his cheeks. A major storm was brewing and he was at its eye. He reached up to turn on the air vent located directly above his seat. The rush of cool air made him feel slightly better but his hopes of sleeping for the rest of the flight evaporated. He had the desire to throw the paper away and not read anymore but he couldn’t. He read on:
James Lee Patterson, Director of the CIA, often called ‘Gentleman Jim’ because
of his courtly manner to even his staunchest opponents was uncharacteristically
vehement in defense of his Agency. " I am appalled and ashamed to think that
this President would even dare to question the loyalty of myself and of those
people who work for me. We have acted, at all times, well within the bounds of
the law, despite there having been many temptations to operate outside of it to
strengthen this nation’s security. In any event, any major operation is done
with full advice given to the President and Congress, a point the President
seems to overlook. If the President continues to make unsupported insinuations,
I will have no choice but to resign this post which I have held during the
bipartisan tenure of seven different presidents."When the President was advised of Mr. Patterson’s ultimatum, he responded only by saying, "I can only respect and admire Mr. Patterson for doing what he, in his heart, thinks is right. I hope he respects me for doing the same thing."
Meanwhile, other sources say...
Sammy couldn’t read any further. He put down the newspaper but just as quickly picked it up again. He looked at the dateline. It was yesterday’s news. Was there any way the Chief knew it was going to break. There had to be. The Company was so wired into everything that it was possible there were a couple of agents elected to Congress. The thought scared him. Could his summons to D.C. be because they knew of this development and were bringing him in for "closure", a Company euphemism that he did not wish to think about. He was now fully terrified that he would be sacrificed and that his body would be turned over with forged documents indicating that he was a rogue CIA agent, operating beyond the pale of any authority extended to him. His mind swam with so many thoughts he couldn’t think straight. He was glad no one was sitting in the seat next to him witnessing his strange behavior. Had there been such a companion they might have believed that the young man sitting next to them was having a myocardial infarction. Frantically, he grabbed for and pushed the flight attendant call button.
"Yes sir, may I help you?," she said. Her name was Christine, according to her name tag.
"Yeah, I’ve changed my mind about that drink. Do you have any tequila?"
No, I’m afraid we don’t."
"Then I’ll have a Scotch. Please give me two. No ice. Just straight up." As she started to walk away, he asked, "Excuse me, do you have any Jack Daniels, instead?"
"Why, yes we do"
"Okay, two of those instead."
The drink burned his throat when he took his first swallow, but afterwards it went down smoothly and had a tremendous calming effect upon him. He decided to watch the movie that was beginning in the hopes that it would take his mind off his current predicament and help him pass the time easily. Since this was a long flight there were two movies. The first was one of those mindless comedies with a threadbare plot whose sole existence was necessary to keep all of the endless sight gags and tired one-liners coming. This one was a war movie spoof. While it wasn’t a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, watching it made Sammy relax to the point where he was even laughing at those endless sight gags and tired one-liners. He actually felt that he would be able to sleep for a while on the plane and did, in fact, doze off during the news program that was shown between the first and second movie.
When he woke up, he was calmer, but the second movie was a spy film that only served to remind him of his problem. He remembered that he had some big time problems, indeed, but felt he could deal with them if he forced some rational thought on the issue. He knew that if the Company did not want him to be safe, he would very well be the target of the investigation, but what could he do. If he ran, the Agency would dispatch an untold amount of agents to take him down. In all reality, even if he were able to keep running, he would never be able to stop. And, unfortunately, he did not have the resources to keep running. While he was paid handsomely for his efforts and had an extraordinarily large bank account for most people, not to mention a twenty three year old, his finances were not sufficient to allow him to constantly move. In addition, while he had $5,000 in cash on him presently, it was more likely than not that the Company would freeze his bank accounts, thus preventing him to obtain the funds to keep on the lam. With the Company’s strings carefully placed all over the world, internationally and domestically, it was highly unlikely that he would be safe in the FBI’s witness protection program. In fact, that would probably be the most dangerous. He could never be anonymous. The Agency could easily find out his new identity and he would be liquidated shortly thereafter. For Christ’s Sake, he was dealing with the "blackest" and most covert unit within the government. Goddamit, he had to think.
He took a deep breath. Maybe he was overreacting. Maybe he was not going to be a scapegoat. He had served the Company well and it was quite possible that they would not use him as a sacrificial lamb. Yet he could not wonder what effect his attempts at resignation had. Damn! He shouldn’t have been so stupid. He should have realized that he could never leave. That they would never let him. He should have asked for reassignment from the field to an intelligence analyst position, one of those desk jockeys that monitor threats to the nation’s (and the Company’s) security. He knew that he hadn’t asked for this previously because of his conscience. He was directly responsible for the deaths of three people and becoming indirectly responsible for future deaths was no salve. He couldn’t live with himself so he proffered his resignation. Well, hell’s bells, he thought. A dead man has no conscience. Should’ve thought of that before, Sammy. Now you can meet up with your victims in the afterlife.
He had no choice. He would report tomorrow morning and withdraw his resignation and request re-assignment to a desk position. He hoped it was not too late. If asked, he would feign ignorance of the Congressional inquiry and the Presidential panel. He would do his best to act surprised. That was one thing he was good at, maintaining a cover. No reason for them to even doubt him one bit. He’d been in Alaska for a week and it was widely known that he preferred to rent a video and watch a movie rather than watching the news. While his specific assignments may have mandated his keeping current with the news, his overall job responsibilities did not and he avoided television news programs or newspapers whenever possible.
He would carry out his last assignment, be re-assigned to a desk position and would then live the rest of his life in a cloak of anonymity, keeping his mouth shut and assisting the CIA and the Company to deflect all criticisms. He, of all people, would find a way to do so because of his intimate knowledge of the questioned activities.
His thoughts were interrupted by the announcement from the Captain. "Ladies and Gentlemen. This is the Captain speaking. We have begun our final descent into the Capital area. As we make our approach in to Dulles Airport you will be able to see the downtown D.C. area on the right hand side of the cabin. The flight crew has asked me to ask you to fasten your seat belts and make sure that your tray tables are in the upright position. I’m glad the flight has been uneventful. On behalf of the flight crew and myself we thank you for flying Trans National Airlines and hope you come back to see us again. We hope you enjoy your stay in Washington, D.C."
Sammy laughed to himself. ‘Uneventful flight’ my ass, he thought. For him, it was one of the worst flights he had ever been on.
After retrieving his luggage from the baggage carousel, he waited an interminable period of time for a taxi. When he finally got his cab, he was dismayed to see that the driver was a rancid Pakistani with little or no experience in driving in the Washington area. While wanting to fall asleep during the twenty minute cab ride, he felt very pissed off that he had to force himself to stay awake to give directions to the cabby. With the cab driver not really understanding English all too well, the twenty minute drive turned into a forty minute drive. When they pulled up to Sammy’s apartment, a faded brownstone in the Foggy Bottom section of Washington, Sammy paid the metered amount and refused to give a tip. The cab driver vehemently yelled "Fuck you."
Sammy replied quietly, " I guess I was wrong about you not knowing English." He shut the door with a bang and carried his bags up to the front stoop. After unlocking the door, he stopped to collect his mail and walked up the stairs to his apartment, which was on the second floor of the brownstone. As much as he hated the Company, he was glad that they paid for two apartments for him so he had easy accessibility. He had requested the second apartment to be in Albany so he could be close to his friends when he was not working and the Company was glad to oblige.
Friends, he thought. It was good to be with them. Davey, Steve and Bill. Wait a minute, he thought. Bill was on the staff of Senator Joseph Humphreys, a freshman senator who hailed from Schenectady. Bill’s father, a lawyer, got him an internship during college in which Bill helped manage Humphreys’ senatorial campaign. When Humphreys ousted the incumbent, Senator Paul George, Bill, through the wonderful patronage system, was proffered a high level staff position in the Senator’s office. He was given the job on graduation day, a nice present from mentor to mentee.
Maybe he could talk to Bill. If he funneled information to Bill, perhaps he could make inquiries, using the power of his office. After all, Congressional leaks were more common than holes in Swiss cheese. He’d have to look into that.
Once inside his apartment, he did not bother to unpack. He took a shower and shaved and then promptly went to sleep, setting his alarm for 6:30 in the morning. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow and slept soundly throughout the night and, as far as he could remember, he did not dream.
So well did he sleep, in fact, that he woke up fifteen minutes before the alarm went off. He turned off the alarm and made coffee. He was glad that he did not sleep until the alarm went off because if he woke up before the alarm went off and decided to sleep until it did go off, he suffered major bouts of undesired grogginess. That was something he didn’t want to experience today.
While drinking his coffee, a special Colombian brew he ordered via a catalog from the Egyptian Coffee House in Walla Walla, Washington, he went through the mail that accumulated during his two week absence. Nothing remarkable. Two issues of Newsweek, a phone bill, the cable bill and an ad for a credit card offering a low 18.7% APR. He also received an ad from a computer company hawking their wares and a catalog from an order by mail electronics company. He threw everything out but the two Newsweeks and the two bills.
After finishing his coffee, he showered and shaved and dressed in his most conservative gray suit, white shirt and paisley tie. He left his apartment at 8:30 and hailed a cab, not an easy feat given the amount of people who took cabs at this time of morning to get to work. He was lucky and got a cab within five minutes. The cab took him to an inauspicious office building on 13th Street near the National Theatre.
Entering the building, he took the elevator to the basement offices of Renfro Sales Corporation, the Company’s cover. "Nice to have you back Mr. Johnston" greeted Julie, the red-headed, big chested receptionist that was rumored to have slept with most of the guys at this place. "Mr. Renfro is expecting you."
"Thanks, Julie." Passing Julie’s desk and entering the sales floor, Sammy marveled at the cover the Company used. In fact, this was not a new feeling for him. Every time he passed through he was awed by the meticulous care the Company used to maintain the cover. Renfro Sales Corporation was a company that procured job lots of items and then sold them to various liquidation warehouses and retail stores that were located throughout the country. With the decline of the department store as the prime buying source, and people looking for a bargain, many of these stores catered to people who wanted to save a buck and began popping up all over suburban America. The dozen salesmen in cheap off-the-rack suits were actually salesman employed by Renfro totally unaware of the true nature of the operation. Their cries, actually selling items procured by Renfro, could be heard as Sammy passed through the sales floor.
"Come on, you gotta help me here."
"So what are we talking about? Two dozen grosses. Is that all?"
"Listen, I can cut a hundred bucks off the whole shipment but that’s it."
Renfro Sales Corporation was a real company with a very healthy bottom line. These salesmen were responsible for net profits of $10 million last year and this year proved to be even better. Renfro paid all of its taxes on time, gave to charities and if anyone from the Internal Revenue Service ever desired to see detailed sales records, they would be able to produce them. Of course, that eventuality had never come to pass, to Sammy’s knowledge. Renfro took less deductions than a normal corporate entity would and, therefore, the Internal Revenue Service would never audit them, lest they actually lessen the amount of taxes paid.
As Senior Vice President in charge of marketing, he was known to all of them as Harry James and they waved to him as he crossed the floor. He returned every wave with one of his own. At the end of the sales floor he came up to a set of double doors that said "Executive Personnel Only." This was a security area and it was necessary for him to push his access card into a slot to unlock the doors. Passing through them, he entered into a long corridor with an elevator at the end. Once again using his security card, he summoned the elevators by pushing the button marked "one". After a few seconds, the elevator doors opened and he walked into an area right out of a spy movie. Computers lined one entire wall, enclosed in glass sarcophagi. Banks of monitors rested against another set of walls. More monitors lay in a console located towards the middle of the floor. Glass walls with world maps on them dotted the perimeter of the room. Large Screen Television monitors were scattered throughout. Printers were located in strategic positions near the computers and monitors. The crowning achievement, however, was the glass enclosed conference room with its own set of computers, monitors, printers and maps as well as a large oak conference table that was surrounded by twenty luxuriously appointed leather chairs. The conference room was empty, for the moment, but the rest of the supermarket sized floor was busily traveled by the one hundred or so analysts monitoring various intelligence operations.
This was the heart of The Company, the ultrasecret arm of the Central Intelligence Agency created by its Director, James Lee Patterson, with his own personal funds. No one, aside from Patterson and a handful of others who reported directly to him, in official Washington knew that The Company even existed. Created in 1961, the Company was established by Patterson to operate domestically and to carry out activities that could not be handled by the CIA proper. Patterson wanted all threats to the nation’s security, no matter how trivial, monitored. He also wanted any threat to his own power base effectively eliminated with no trace. So secret was the Company’s true identity that most of the people who actually worked as analysts believed that they were working for the CIA proper. Through use of secret funds and access to the government’s highly sophisticated and encrypted computer system Patterson was able to ensure that all of his analysts were paid by official government checks like their official counterparts, although no record of them as a group ever existed. Patterson knew that the federal bureaucracy was so large that no one, but no one, would catch one or two additional personnel per federal agency. No bureaucrat performed a line by line search of personnel or inventory. All they cared about was the bottom line. Thus, it was easy to place Company employees inside various departments within the CIA, but also within other agencies of the federal government, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Labor and the Environmental Protection Agency. The last agency was the best as they had begun a massive expansion in light of the recently enacted Superfund legislation and were counting head growth in the hundreds per month.
It was never Patterson’s intention to call the secret side of Renfro Sales Corporation ‘The Company." He started referring to it as Renfro, as in ‘let’s see what Renfro can dig up’ or ‘let the boys at Renfro handle it’. Patterson’s direct subordinates merely got to the now official name by saying they had to get back to Company premises, or that the people at the Company were looking for them, and thus creating the name. Patterson did nothing to dissuade the use of the name. He reasoned that in the unlikely event that any communication from Renfro referencing ‘the Company’ was intercepted, the interceptees would assume that the CIA proper was involved. And if Patterson was questioned about it, he could open up his doors and prove that the CIA was not involved.
The current head of Renfro was George Connolly. He was Patterson’s most trusted aide and, although titularly in charge of the Company for only a short time, he had unofficially been Patterson’s pipeline to Renfro since its inception. For ten years prior to Connolly, Henry Richardson headed up Renfro and his removal had been mysterious. Most of the analysts were young and had only been around for Richardson’s tenure so they had not known the nameless man who preceded Richardson and who disappeared under even more mysterious consequences. After Richardson’s demise, Patterson installed Connolly to avoid further upheaval as Connolly was the only person Patterson trusted anywhere close to one hundred percent.
Most of the staff were analysts, monitoring transmissions from all over the globe. A small corps of elite personnel were known as The Liars, Patterson’s intelligence version of the Delta Force. Sammy was one of these elite individuals and, despite his youth and relative inexperience, was considered to be the best. The Liars were the ultimate undercover personnel, chameleons who could fit into any situation at any time. They were utilized by Patterson to infiltrate any person or organization that he felt was inimical to his self perceived best interests. Some had fit in as White House Aides (and were, to Patterson’s chagrin, named as unindicted co-conspirators some eight years ago) some had been FBI agents and some had been Congressmen. Whatever the task, the liars were best suited for the job because of their intelligence and loyalty. Not one of the Liars had ever broken rank and divulged information about Patterson and the Company. And Patterson’s strict selection criteria and generosity in terms of huge payments for assignments ensured that it would remain that way. However, none of the Liars had Sammy’s effectiveness, especially considering his short tenure with the Company. In fact, Patterson, not one to heap praise upon any of his subordinates, said that Sammy’s last two assignments had been nothing short of miraculous.
Now, Sammy passed through the floor, sidestepping people running back and forth with reams of paper in their hands or talking excitedly to other colleagues and swerving around the monitor bank workstations that were set up haphazardly on the floor until he came to a solitary door cut so precisely into the wall that one would not notice it except for the security keypad to its left. He ran his card through the slot and typed in a six digit acknowledgment code that would announce his identity to the Chief. Sammy was still amazed that the Chief operated without a secretary; however, Connolly felt the less known about him the better. None of the clerical people had ever seen him and only a handful of the analysts had ever met with him. If he required a briefing, the analysts would brief their respective section chiefs who would then, in turn, brief the Chief. He stayed in his office all day long and when he left it was by a secret passage in his office. One of the things Sammy liked to do when he was bored during a meeting with the Chief was to peruse the room to determine where the secret entryway was. To date, he hadn’t been able to find it.
Sammy heard a buzz from the security console and an unlatching sound within the door mechanism. He pushed the door inward and entered the Chief’s office. He noticed for the first time that the door was four inches thick. He heard the door close behind him and heard the noise again, indicating that the door was securely locked. There was an oversized mahogany desk with two highback Queen Anne chairs in front of the desk for the visitors as well as a luxurious brown leather couch against the far right wall. The walls were covered in mahogany from the floor to six feet high and the remaining four feet was painted a splendidly ungovernmental cream color. While there were no windows because they were underground, there was a set of expensive drapes behind the Chief’s desk that gave the impression they could be opened at any time to let the sun in. What it really hid was a large screen television capable of broadcasting everything from regular television stations to satellite broadcasts to state of the art computer generated video.
George Connolly came around his desk to greet Sammy, appearing genuinely happy to see him. "How are you, Sammy? How was your week’s vacation? Where did you go?" he asked as if he didn’t know. Yet he had hoped to be sort of a father figure towards the young man. Sammy had some, but not a hell of a lot of contact with his parents and Connolly decided to step in and mold the young man to his own ends. That was how Sammy moved from the Company’s version of the Directorate of Intelligence to the Directorate of Operations.
"Alaska" was Sammy’s reply.
"Alaska," The Chief asked, feigning polite surprise. "I can’t wait to see your expense account. Why did you go there?"
"I’ve always wanted to go there. Take a dog sled over the tundra, see the midnight sun, fall in love with a pretty Eskimo."
The Chief laughed. "Did you do and see what you wanted?"
"And more." They both laughed this time.
"Please, Sammy, sit down and make yourself comfortable." He repositioned himself behind the desk. "Are you ready for your last assignment?"
"I am, but first I’d like a favor."
"What’s that."
"I want to change my request for resignation into one for re-assignment to an analyst spot."
"No shit," the Chief replied. This time he sounded truly surprised. "When did you decide this?"
"I had the idea brewing in my head for a while now and I got to think about it more and more when I was out in the wilderness last week. I think I would miss the environment. And you seem to like my work so I thought I could be a great resource staying on as an analyst. If you’ll still have me I’ll be happy to stay on when I finish my last assignment."
"If we’ll still have you," the Chief exclaimed, getting up and coming around his desk once again. "Hell, this is the best news I’ve heard in a long while."
"Really?"
"Hell, yes. You’re the best that’s happened to the Company in a long time. You’ve accomplished things that no one else has had the capability of doing. In fact, I’ll let you in on something else. The Director was truly upset when I told him about your resignation. He said that I had unlimited authority to keep you on board. He wants me to convey to you that you can have any position within the Company that you want after you accomplish your last assignment. I didn’t even need to tell you that since you asked for reassignment without any carrot in front of you, but, goddamit, I’m so tickled pink that the offer stands." He grabbed Sammy’s shoulders. "You made my day."
"Thank you, Sir."
"Now that we’ve taken care of that, let’s get down to brass tacks about your last assignment. Have you read yesterday’s or today’s papers or watched the news on TV?" he asked as he walked around the desk to his chair.
Here it comes. I’m being given up after all, thought Sammy. Hell, here goes nothing. "No, why?"
"Well, it seems our beloved fucking president has taken a major step towards endangering America’s national security system."
"How," asked Sammy. So far, so good.
"Read for yourself." With that, the Chief tossed over copies of yesterday’s and today’s Washington Post. Sammy did his best to appear as if he never read the story before. He shook his head back and forth, feigning disbelief. He also muttered a couple of "Christs" under his breath. When he got to the part of the article regarding the suspicious deaths, he started to squirm in his seat. This was not feigned, however. This was the same reaction he had reading yesterday’s paper. Reading it again made him nervous a second time. The Post’s reporting was less genteel than the Times’ and listed the manner and cause of each suspicious death. As Sammy clearly remembered each one, he became more nervous and began to sweat. Loosening his collar, he exclaimed, "I can’t believe this."
"We’re in a very dangerous situation, here."
"You mean, I’m in a very dangerous situation."
"No, I mean we. You may have been the assassin, but here we are, a super secret arm of the CIA, established over twenty years ago by James Patterson, without Presidential or Congressional knowledge. Our sole purpose has been to carry out domestic activities in contravention of our charter. We are answerable only to Patterson and have carried out secret and illegal orders that has caused the CIA to be besieged with rumors that have upset its very existence. In fact, the only reason that the CIA has not been caught with their pants down is that there is not one shred of paper contained within any files at the CIA. All orders are issued by Patterson verbally to this office directly via a secure line. To be frank, I don’t think that anyone else within the CIA is aware of our existence."
"No one?"
"Think about it. Here we are. The world’s foremost intelligence operation. Patterson has been in charge of it for twenty five years. Twenty-five. If it hadn’t been for Hoover’s super tenure, Patterson’s longevity would’ve been unheard of. And Jimmy Lee got the idea to create us when he started accumulating evidence of activities by Presidents and Congressman to wield should there be any attempt to remove him from office. He’s been through three democrats, three republicans and now he’s on his third republican. And you know what we’ve done. Watergate, Watts, King, Malcolm X and Jack and Bobby Kennedy. We’ve precipitated all of these. What if the American public found out that we that we attempted to have one President impeached and actually had another one shot, along with his baby brother senator. Holy Shit. I don’t even want to think about it."
"You sold me."
"What would happen in the other superpowers’ intelligence communities if word of this got out. Utter chaos. It would be like gangland warfare. They would stop dealing with our agents and our ability to maintain the national security of this country would be totally compromised and that, I don’t need to tell you, is something we don’t need. You are the least of the problems. No one is going to place the blame on you or I or anyone in this office. There are contingency plans to shut down this operation without a trace so no one will discover us. But to do this will mean that that damage to America’s intelligence community would be irreparable."
"What can we do?"
"That’s where you come in. We are sending you under very deep cover into the White House to determine the status of this investigation and to report back. You will have a top security clearance and the background check will show that you are a very bright, resourceful government researcher for the NSA who has been found to possess a keen intellect and an ability to pick documents apart with a microscope. Your researcher background will be attractive to the White House as there will be volumes upon volumes of papers to go through on behalf of the panel. You will be an Assistant to the White House Chief of Staff and will be privy to all meetings regarding the panel. You will be in constant contact with President Jenkins. By the way, here is your cover. Memorize it."
With that, he tossed a five inch thick manila folder towards Sammy’s side of the desk. "Learn everything in there to the point where you become Paul Kalvin, which will be your cover, and are able to recite everything as second nature. As you report back we will determine the effectiveness of the panel. If it is not being effective, you will continue in your assignment until the panel adjourns. If the panel is effective and is coming close to the truth and there is no way for you to derail the investigation, you will have no choice but to kill the President of the United States.
"May God help us all and have mercy on our souls."
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