Operation Damocles (16 page)

XXI

Hector Ortiz was short, in his early sixties, had white hair with a small bald spot at the back of his head. He was a native Californian. He wore plastic-framed glasses with bifocals. He was habitually in a white lab coat when at work, and his colleagues thought he looked strange when they saw him in other clothes. He was outgoing and playful by nature, but outwardly sarcastic. You had to get to know him to realize that he wasn’t the grouchy old curmudgeon that he pretended to be.

Despite the lab coat and the credential, Ortiz was more of an administrator than a scientist. He knew a lot of people throughout academia, and he could get things done. He obtained grants prolifically, and while he generally kept his secretary and the accounting department pulling their hair out by the way he applied appropriated funds in a helter-skelter fashion, he was generally well-liked, and kept harmony in his department.

He published one or two short, innocuous papers a year. He was also comfortably installed in a somewhat arcane niche and wasn’t jousting with anyone for higher position. He had tenure, and he had one other outstanding quality; he thumbed his nose at bureaucratic authority. He also had a Hispanic friend on the Board of Regents, and because of the Boards unofficial emphasis on minority tenure, anyone would’ve had a hell of a time in ousting him.

It had worked well throughout the better part of two decades. No one had ever bothered trying. His resulting
sang froid
bothered a few of his superiors, but not sufficiently to spark any real enmity. In short, he was pretty much bullet-proof, and he knew it.

His meeting with Jack Townsend was at the request of a mutual friend, a C.I.A. friend who had gotten him out of Cuba when the Batista government fell.

He had been a visiting graduate intern at the university there in 1959, when the proverbial excrement hit the fan. He had spent three days running and hiding, while fellow academics were rounded up. Those that were Cuban natives with families couldn’t avoid capture—there was too much leverage over them. It had not gone as harshly with them as they had feared, but at the time everyone was in a panic of terror, thinking they were to be shot or imprisoned, and afraid for their families.

When he had stumbled into the big C.I.A. agent, he had never been so glad to see an Anglo face in his life. It was American, and he hoped, friendly. It turned out far better than he had hoped. The man was from the same area in California, and four hours later, Ortiz was with him on a small seaplane, bound for Miami.

Memories of those days were also a part of his personal armor. He had never been that afraid again. He and his savior, Edward Teller, had become close friends during the following years, and Ortiz had been involved in a number of C.I.A. community science projects. Both were bachelors, and after Teller retired, they became regular companions, fishing together on weekends, or watching sports on TV.

Ortiz was generally open to visitors and would have met with Townsend anyway, or almost anyone else for that matter, but Teller had introduced Townsend by phone and explained the special nature of this visit. Ortiz was very curious to meet the man. When he did meet him, in his office, on the afternoon of December 26, he suddenly remembered a forgotten feeling, a presence that he hadn’t experienced in a long while. He already knew what the man was. His friend had told him, but he would have known anyway. He knew that look, that subliminal cast of the features, and his curiosity grew.

Before Townsend could speak, he advanced, shook hands and said, “I’ve been around enough spooks to know one when I see one, Mr. Townsend. I see Dr. Philips, the scientist in charge of your Community Affairs Office, once or twice a year at the odd convention or seminar. Know him?”

Townsend smiled guardedly, “Dr. Robert Emerson has been in charge of the Community Affairs Office for the past two years, Dr. Ortiz. Eddie said you were an ‘irreverent old spic,’ but he didn’t tell me you were tricky, too.”

“Did he call me that? Did that old, honky asshole call me a spic?” He pretended great offense. “What else did he say about me?”

“Just that he wouldn’t trade you for all the oil in Alaska. I take it that you two have some sort of history together. Eddie didn’t elaborate except to mention that he met you in Cuba during Castro’s revolt. At any rate, he thinks a lot of you, and I trust him, so here we are.”

Ortiz laughed. “Eddie and I go back to just about the fall of the Roman empire. We’re keeping each other company while everything is slowly being overwhelmed by the Brave, New World. Or to put it crudely, we’re watching everything go to hell in a handcart. What would a pair of old farts like us do, without someone our own age to commiserate with? You young dipsticks don’t remember when cigarettes were a quarter, or when a hamburger or a gallon of gas was thirty-five cents. You’ve probably never even seen a drive-in movie.

“In my day, you could take your girl out for a hamburger and a beer, and go to a double feature with cartoons for five bucks. It was a magic age. A different way of thinking that no one can describe. Do you remember the Ventures? ‘Walk Don’t Run,’ ‘Pipeline,’ ‘Perfidy’? Or Roy Orbison, ‘Pretty Woman,’ ‘Crying,’ ‘Blue Bayou’? Or ‘La Bamba,’ or Harry Belafonte, ‘Banana Boat’? How about Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, or Peter, Paul and Mary?”

“I vaguely remember a few of those. I remember the Beatles.”

“The Beatles sucked. They, and that whole tribe of gangly legged, long-haired British hippies, ruined American music.”

“I didn’t say I liked them.”

Ortiz considered him for a moment. They both laughed.

“I can see why you and Eddie get along,” Townsend laughed. “You’re a pair of crotchety old bastards.”

“Well, it beats being pubescent young assholes,” Ortiz said, sitting down at his desk, and gesturing Townsend toward a chair. “What’s going on in Spooksville, anyway?”

Townsend sobered, watching Ortiz’s face narrowly. ‘This is not a company matter,” he said, “and I wouldn’t want it to get to them. There is some risk in associating with me. If that worries you, we’ll end it there. I’m not about to get a friend involved unknowingly, or the friend of a friend. I need some scientific help, and Eddie seems to think that you can supply it.”

Ortiz waved his hand dismissively. “Eddie told me all that. What is it you want?”

“I’m trying to find the people who made the weapon. I need someone who knows his way around in the physics community, someone who is familiar with what has been published and what hasn’t, someone who’s tied into the worldwide physics grapevine. It’s inconceivable that something like that could be built, and nobody know anything about it, or how it was done. If I knew what kinds of parts were involved, I could trace parts and materials shipments.

“Somebody knows who they are, and more than a few somebodies suspect; but amazingly, no one in the physics community, outside the government anyway, is even making a guess. Why is that?”

It was Ortiz’s turn to scrutinize Townsend. “Why do you want to find them?”

“I think I want to join them. Corny as it sounds, I want to fight for the rebirth of democracy in this country. I’ve been a part of the other side, and I know firsthand what this country is up against. I want to salvage humanity while it’s still possible, and I don’t believe there will ever be another opportunity like this one. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance. We just can’t let it slip by. If that weapon system fails, for whatever reason, we will have lost our only hope. They are too entrenched—too well established for us to gain control by any other means.”

“Things seem to be pretty well in hand, in that respect. What makes you think that you can help?” asked Ortiz.

“I have the know-how to find the maggots buried under the flesh of this country. I know how the network is set up, and I know at least one individual who can get me started down the trail. I have personal reasons, too.

“If I have to operate alone, I will, but that way is too slow. I need help. That weapon gives humanity a fighting chance. We have to loll the puppet masters now, or we will never win this nation back. Those people are still with us, and they are not going to give up. If that weapon goes away, they will be back, big time.”

“Could you identify and locate all these underworld kingpins?”

“I think so, but it would be much faster with help. I could ferret a few of them out, I’m sure, but this underground is worldwide. These people are part of the international set. They move around this nation and from country to country the way you walk across this campus. They live everywhere, but mostly on the coasts. New York and California are home to a lot of them—or New York was, before that weapon fired. They’re in all the jet-set capitals of the world—Paris, London, Rio. It’s going to take a lot of digging to find all the corporate connections, affiliations, history of buy-outs and mergers—almost like tracing family trees—and I haven’t the resources to get very far alone. It’s just too big a job for one man.

“It’s one thing to suspect someone, but it’s another to find the proof. I need the help of some dedicated researchers, and I no longer have a huge government budget with which to hire them. I need people who can manipulate computers, get into banking records and trace company pedigrees. Where the nationalists are concerned, I need specific information about the kinds of parts that would be required for such a weapon, so I can search for supply purchases and A&E firms that did unusual design and fabrication contracts.”

“Don’t you think that the government is already doing that?” asked Ortiz. “What makes you think you can succeed where they, with all their resources, haven’t?”

Townsend smiled. “Partly, it’s because I have faith in my own ability. I see things a little differently than most people—some indefinable difference in perspective, I guess. Whatever it is, a sixth sense, or subliminal knowledge, or some weird instinct—it has always found a way. Secondly, there is a lot of confusion about these people. What drives them—what their ultimate goals are. I have opinions about that too. You don’t set a thief and scoundrel to fathom the motivations of a priest or a patriot. That’s just an analogy, but you get my meaning. One can’t fathom the thinking of the other, not in any real way.

“The government is looking at this in a military sense, like it was a militant faction, even a splinter force that broke off some army, somewhere, or like a rival mob that wants to take turf away from their gang. I think they’re all wrong.”

“Who do you think it is?” Ortiz asked.

“I think it’s a group of scientists,” Townsend replied, “or at least, a group composed mostly of scientists and engineers. Technical people, not military types. Their motives are altruistic, pure and simple. They have the physical institutions necessary to hide the acquisition of supplies and materials. The research could be broken up into a thousand pieces and piggybacked onto other, diverse research projects over a period of time, and no one would ever be the wiser.”

Ortiz picked at his fingernails. “Sounds reasonable,” he said.

“I’m convinced of it, Dr. Ortiz,” Townsend said, studying the old scientist. “All that remains is to analyze past research projects for anomalies in parts, materials and services. I’ll bet that these people used a lot of federal research grants as the piggyback vehicles to accomplish that weapon system. They probably laughed at the irony of it. Federal research grants require a lot of detailed record-keeping though, and I have access to those files.”

“Well, I’ll say this for you,” said Ortiz, meeting Townsend’s gaze, and smiling, “you’ve got the makings of a good detective yarn, or spy story. You’re likely barking up the wrong tree, though. Scientists are fundamentally humanitarians and environmentalists—tree-huggers and fern-feelers. They don’t make war, at least not directly.”

“One thing I’ve learned about life,” said Townsend, smiling back. “Given incentive, nature will produce a fluke. Man, animal or plant, if pressure is brought to bear, life will adapt, even if the adaptation is contrary to precedence.

“It’s an irony and a pity,” Townsend said, staring out the window introspectively, “every technological breakthrough has its yin and yang. Computers have revolutionized medicine, made space flight possible, helped us in a thousand ways, but they have also made a global, criminal network possible.

“The same holds true for this weapon. Right now, it appears to be a savior. If the Defense Department gets control of it, it will either be the ultimate whip to beat mankind into submission, or the ultimate shield of freedom. Whoever controls the Defense Department will decide which purpose it is put to.”

“Do you think they will get control of it?” Ortiz asked.

“I don’t know. I do know they intend to try. That’s another area where I can be useful.

“A few weeks ago something happened that made up my mind. As a precaution, I wrote a computer program, just an algorithm really, but it enables me to gain access to several different secure computer nets in the intelligence community, including most of the affiliated agencies and their contractors. The complexity of the federal network is also its greatest weakness.

“Anyway, I had authorized access, but I suspected that authorization might be limited or revoked by my supervisor at any moment. We had a philosophical disagreement of sorts, you might say. I couldn’t risk waiting until I was denied access, so I did it. As it turned out, it was none too soon; my department chief turned me out permanently. I’m a fugitive. Legitimate law-enforcement agencies are after me.”

“Why are you trusting me with this?” Ortiz asked. “You don’t know me.”

“Eddie says you feel the same way that I do. You are not going to help me without knowing why, are you?”

“No, but it seems like an all-or-nothing gamble on your part. I could turn you in.”

“Are you going to?”

Ortiz smiled, “Not today.”

“Will you help?”

“I have a friend who has some theories. I’ll let you talk to him on one condition. I want to know everything you intend to do, before you do it.”

“Why?”

“I have my reasons. Uppermost is self-preservation. Only a little below that is concern for the lives of the people that I put you in touch with. I’m sorry, but I can’t be as trusting as you. The Feds are well-known for entrapment schemes. There is too much at risk. For the moment, let’s just say that philosophically I might agree with your political views to some extent. I will help you, insofar as helping you to do some computer research. I won’t support any act of direct treason. That will have to suffice for now. Deal?” Ortiz extended his hand.