Geek Mafia (29 page)

By 9:00 PM both Instapundit and the Drudge Report were linking to the story, as were a number of left-wing
blogs like Atrios, Talking Points Memo, and Daily Kos. Paul felt a twang of liberal guilt at this last
development, but he knew he couldn't let his own political leanings get in the way of the greater con. Besides,
ultimately it was the radical right-wingers who'd feel the pain on this one, not the Dems. So they launched the
left-wing phase of the misinformation campaign. In the past two weeks they'd also established a handful of
liberal screen names for the express purpose of adding fuel to the fire. While most of the liberal commentators
decried the protest as either juvenile or dangerous (or both), a few people posting offered their full support
for the Global Freedom Army's action. They even got support from screen names they hadn't created
themselves.

And of course, the right-wing false identities quickly noticed what the left wing false identities were saying
and posted links and quotes to them on the conservative sites. Every political junkie and sad sack Internet
monkey who didn't have anything better to do on a Sunday night was getting involved in the debate, and
before too long there was more chatter than the Crew could control.

At 10:45 Chloe shouted from the Server Room, "We're on MSNBC!"

Paul quickly clicked on the bookmark in his browser for MSNBC.com. And there it was. A single headline link
along the right hand side of the screen: California Pranksters Cause Mad Cow Scare. Perfect. It was Sunday,
a slow news night, which they were counting on to get them more attention than they deserved. He knew that
lots of the internet reporters who managed the big time network news Websites also kept at least one eye on
the political blogs. Something this outrageous and politically charged was likely to end up on the Fox News
site too, especially since Drudge had picked it up.

It was now past midnight, meaning after 3:00 AM on the East coast, and things were finally starting to die
down. Paul suggested they wind things down and get some sleep. Tomorrow they'd release the full video that
Bee had shot on her hidden camera (disguised as a pair of glasses), along with a threat to disrupt another
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public event in the next two weeks. Paul was ready for bed anyway, and besides, tomorrow he needed to be
ready for what might prove their most difficult challenge - talk radio.

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CHAPTER 24

When Paul had first taken a stab at being a professional comic book artist, he'd also worked as a pizza delivery driver for Papa Johns. Since he was at his most creative at night - especially late at night, Paul had taken the lunch shift. His beat up old '86 Volvo's stereo system ate tapes and that left him with nothing but the radio. It was during these long hot afternoons zipping around Tampa that he'd learned to appreciate the horror and spectacle that is Rush Limbaugh. He hated just about everything that came out of Rush's mouth and the only things worse were the dittohead callers and their inane blathering. But for whatever reason, he couldn't turn it off. He couldn't stop listening. Know thine enemy, as the saying goes, or at least that's what he told himself. In truth, what really fascinated him was how easily lying and distortion came to Rush and how quick his listeners were to lick up every word of it.

As the right-wing radio revolution blossomed throughout the nineties and into the Bush II era, Paul listened right along with it. Now, thankfully, he had the left wing Air America network to satisfy his politico-talk cravings, although their callers sometimes seemed just as high-strung and over the top as Rush's. Having logged untold hours listening to both sides, Paul considered himself a true expert on the ins and outs of conservative talk-radio. With Monday morning here, it was time to put that knowledge to the test.

He'd slept poorly the night before, tossing and turning so much that Chloe had kicked him out of the bed because he was keeping her awake. Although they'd shared a bed ever since he returned, there hadn't been anything sexual between them since the beach. Paul got the impression that she was waiting to see how he handled himself as a leader. He felt sure that if he pulled this scam off as he'd planned, she would finally see him as an equal partner and, he hoped, lover.

Although almost everyone in the tech-savvy Crew had been conversant with blogs and Internet bulletin boards, none of them had ever listened to much talk radio. They were definitely more a music kind of crowd, so Paul had to brief them pretty extensively about how your typical caller behaves. He'd created a simple persona for each of them to play and written just a couple basic script sheets for them to work off of. He wasn't too worried about them sounding the same on two different shows, because the odds were they wouldn't get on in any case - at least not on any of the national shows.

The big boys who had national syndication like Rush and Hannity and even O'Reilly had thousands of callers every hour. Getting on any of those shows would be pure luck. Unlike every other aspect of the con, this was something Paul couldn't plan for or control. While getting on the air wasn't necessary, it would b a nice boost to the overall plan. As soon as the national phone lines opened, the Crew members started calling. He'd warned them to expect to be on hold for an hour or more.

Meanwhile, Paul, Chloe, and Raff decided to focus in on the local call-in shows, where they figured they'd have a better chance of getting air-time - especially since they'd be posing as eye-witnesses to the actual event.

Well, not really posing, since they were definitely there when it happened, but rather posing as mere innocent bystanders full of outrage at what had happened to them.

Each caller had their own Walkman and headphones tuned to their assigned station and a phone that Bee had especially prepared for the occasion. Some of the bigger shows kept logs of incoming calls and all of them had caller ID. Simply blocking the ID signal might raise some suspicions, so instead Bee had whipped up a little device that gave a fake name and number. Each black box had the fake ID's name and number printed on it so the Crew member using it wouldn't forget who he or she was supposed to be.

Chloe was the first to get through, in her case to a local call-in show called The Sam Evers Show. The host, a fifty-something former top 40 DJ who suddenly became conservative when he started to lose touch with the youth demographic, ran a show that the San Jose Mercury News had called "The right-wing equivalent of shock-jock radio." He delighted in making crude parody songs about gays in San Francisco, California's two CHAPTER 24

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Democratic Senators, and of course Hillary Clinton. He rose to prominence during the California recall election as one of Arnold's biggest boosters, appearing at dozens of rallies around the Bay Area.

In many ways, Paul had Evers in mind when he'd conceived of Los Gatos as the site for his prank. He knew Evers lived in the mountains just north of the town and had hoped he might even be present. No such luck, but they did catch a break in one respect - the prank turned out to be the lead item on Evers' show. He railed against the "Unwashed Berkley Punks" who'd "Waged War against everything good and decent in the Bay Area" with their "Godless, communist, terrorist tactics."

Chloe having gotten past the call screener, was the third caller he took.

"Jody in Campbell, you're on the air with Sam Evers," he said.

"Uh, hi Sam. Love your show," said Chloe. "Long time, first time."

"Great to have you with us caller. I understand you witnessed this terrorist attack first hand? Is that right?"

"It's absolutely right Sam. I was there and...and I have to tell you Sam, it was the most outrageous thing I'd ever seen."

"Tell us what happened Jody. What did these patchouli soaked nimrods do?"

"I have to tell you Sam, I live a good, decent, Christian life. There's not a lot left for families like mine to do these days. Not many places that are safe for a family with real values. So my husband and I were really looking forward to taking our little daughter to this arts festival."

"How old's your daughter?"

"She's five, Sam. And she's just a darling, sweet girl. She's never been exposed to anything like this and, I have to tell you, last night she had nightmares like you wouldn't believe. We were up all night with her, the poor little thing."

"An innocent child, scarred, possibly for life," said Sam, his voice as serious as a funeral. "If these degenerates really cared about poor, supposedly exploited workers so much, then maybe they'd be bothered by the fact that they scared this poor little girl half to death with their evil, self-indulgent BS."

"That's right Sam. And I just wanted to call and say that, you know, someone should do something. I mean, the police say they're looking into it but I'll bet that even if they catch these guys, they won't do anything about it. I bet the ACLU will be out here with their stupid garbage and they'd be defending these people."

"These terrorists," interjected Sam.

"Right. Exactly. These terrorists. And the ACLU and the liberal judges would just let them go. Someone else needs to do something. The decent folk around here need to get together and send them a message that this kind of thing isn't ok." Chloe's voice started to become choked with false tears. "Not here, not in our America."

Knowing that it wouldn't get any better than the tear-soaked line that Chloe had just thrown him, Sam took over from there. "Thanks for your call Jody, and give your daughter a big hug from all of us here at the Sam Evers show." Chloe was now disconnected, which was a relief, because she immediately started laughing.

Paul and Raff had both tuned into the Evers show once Chloe got on the air, and they started laughing as well.

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"God, that was perfect," said Paul, taking off his headphones and giving Chloe an encouraging slap on the knee. "Pitch perfect. I could picture Jody exactly. And her poor daughter!"

Raff still had his headphones on one ear, "God this annoying fuck is still going on about the daughter," he informed them. "That was a great angle, Paul."

"The right-wingers always buy into the 'protect our children' line," explained Paul. "It's their own excuse for everything they do, so they'll take any opportunity to jump on that tired old bandwagon."

"So," said Chloe, turning to Paul. "When do we go live with the second site?"

"I'm not sure," he replied. "What do you think?"

"We've got two different factors to consider. It's the choice you have to make with almost any con. Right now the topic is hot. If anything we're getting more exposure than we figured on. So the sooner we move on to the next step, the more people we'll suck in."

"But," said Paul, "Does it strain credulity to think that someone could get a Web site like that up so quickly?

Will people start to suspect that something's up?"

"Exactly. That's the question. And I think, in something like this, you have to go with the momentum. I know we weren't planning to go with the site until tomorrow, but our target audience is talking about it right now.

It's not going to get any bigger than this unless we push it there."

"I don't know," said Paul. "Don't you think it will come across as really convenient? This only works if people believe it's real."

"But you're on the inside Paul. To you, all the deceptions seem too convenient and too obvious because you know they're deceptions. But no one else is looking that hard. These talking heads and Internet goons, all they want is a great story to run with. And you came up with a great story. They're going to go with it because they're going to want to believe it. They're not looking for holes in the story; they want something to get mad about. You can't over-think it. Once the game starts you have to make decisions in the moment and not be paralyzed with over-analysis. Remember, as we always say around here, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, so you can't over think when real life gets ahead of your plan."

"Ahhh," said Paul. "Gotcha. Ok, let's do it. Put the site up. But maybe dumb it down little - take off some of the features like the streaming video. Just the basics."

"Including the part where you donate money," Chloe reminded him.

"Of course. That's why we're here, right?"

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CHAPTER 25

"It's a good sign when complete strangers are doing your work for you," said Chloe.

It was evening now, and they were waiting on hold for yet another local call-in show. Only three other crew members had gotten through during the day - one of them on the G. Gordan Liddy Show and one on a local NPR show out of San Francisco, while Popper actually got on the Sam Evers show as well, saying the same kinds of things that Chloe had. Liddy had already picked up the prank story, as had Rush and Hannity. They didn't make any of the major network news broadcasts that night, or CNN. However, O'Reily mentioned them on his Fox News show, which was quite a coup.

They'd put up the Concerned Citizens for A Moral America site shortly before noon. Over the next few hours they'd painted the right-winger sites with links and had managed to scare up well over ten thousand hits by dinnertime. Now, as they listened on hold, another local talking head, Dr. Nancy Keller, was taking a call from someone totally unrelated to the Crew. This unknown caller could've been reading from one of Paul's scripts, he hit all the right marks. Like Chloe had said, it's great when others do your work for you. The caller even gave the address for the Concerned Citizens site and the host promised to link to it from her own Web site. Perfect.

Concerned Citizens for a Moral America was, of course, a total Crew fabrication. The group's Web site claimed that the CCMA formed itself in the wake of the "Outrageous and Immoral Assault" committed in Lost Gatos on Sunday. Although the site had first hand accounts and pictures from the incident, the main attraction was the reward. The site promised a cash bounty to anyone providing information that led to the unmasking and arrest of those responsible for the Mad Cow scare. It even had a form tipsters could use to e-mail their accusations directly to the Concerned Citizens volunteers, who would then supposedly pass them on to the authorities.