Operation Damocles (8 page)

XI

The congressional debate started on July 29, and raged for six days. The western politicians were willing to adopt a wait-and-see posture, while some of those from the east had constituents who were understandably frantic for someone to do something. No further word was forthcoming from the people wielding the space weapon. Television talk shows were counting down the hours until the threatened calamity—milking viewer fear to increase audience share.

The repeated assurances of government leaders had swayed the majority of citizens in the designated disaster zone and most were staying put, but no amount of assurances and scoffing could allay the fears of everyone, and some were leaving, taking household effects and all. The two-lane roads throughout much of the rural northeast were choked with overburdened cars and U-Haul trailers, kids and pets hanging out the windows, the roofs bending under the weight of furniture and appliances.

The fact that public officials from the “zone” suddenly seemed as rare as winter corn helped to convince the more astute that this wasn’t just a drill. Some reasoned, and justifiably so, that if even the con men were leaving, then the threat might not really be just a terrorist bluff, as Washington insisted.

If it takes one to know one, it was understandable that many in Congress and state government had learned not to put too much faith in anything that came out of the Vanderbilt White House. As the deadline drew near, many of the politicians and the well-to-do were finding it a good time to vacation, or take a business trip to Europe, Hawaii or points west, with the family. The President and most of his cabinet just happened to be out of town on various and sundry missions before the scheduled date arrived.

Congressman Harford put on a defiant show, stating that he would not alter his schedule in the least, and would laugh at the “yellow-bellied reactionaries” among his colleagues after the thing had blown over.

Sporadic fights erupted in a few communities as angry citizens tried, some successfully, to evict stubborn civil officeholders from their nests. Some citizens and a few law-enforcement personnel were killed or wounded. National Guard units, and strategic and tactical military bases were on alert everywhere. Some states had called up National Guardsmen to protect government offices from rioters.

Many of the smaller cities and towns in the rural areas tried to comply with the conditions set forth in the taped message, at least as far as setting up adult education curriculums in their schools, striking victimless crimes off the books, and adjusting their payrolls and administrative budgets. Small-town politicians and civil servants tended to be closer to the people they served, and did not put up the arrogant resistance to eviction that their career brethren in the larger cities did.

Within the federal government, the executive and judicial branches refused to consider meeting any demands whatsoever. Congressional committees debated endlessly, and every representative that took the floor offered some provisional willingness to “look into” some of the terrorists’ stipulations, which “might be possible if substantially amended.”

Government agencies downplayed the warning, following the administration’s lead, trying to get the public back into a calm and tractable state of mind. The official word was that if anything did happen, and that was considered doubtful, the military, the FBI and the other federal authorities were ready for it and would make short work of the terrorists. None of the demanded actions were taken at the federal level, and the few small-town attempts to comply were not consequential enough to merit serious media coverage. All in all, it was a wash. Unknown to the public, terrestrial and orbital eyes were scanning the heavens incessantly, looking for any clue to the location of the weapon that the President had all but denied existed.

###

On August 6, five days before the threatened destruction, at 2:15 a.m., a tremor ran up the length of the east coast of North America like a giant, rumbling freight train passing in the night. The jarring vibrations were accompanied by staccato claps of thunder that wakened sleeping neighborhoods and knocked out power in isolated utility substations at approximately twenty-mile intervals, from Washington to Maine.

That evening, the news reported that an overload had caused power outages up and down the east coast, and that power grids were rerouting trunk lines as quickly as possible. Local news stations warned that further short interruptions might occur as workers made repairs. Utility company public-relations people and police went door-to-door in the affected areas, distributing hurricane lanterns and explaining that residents should buy ice and Styrofoam coolers to preserve perishable foods, because the power might be off for another twenty-four hours or so.

No one told the public that all the electrical substations affected had been reduced to smoking slag. No one mentioned the taped message that expressed one last plea, and a final warning. The Vanderbilt administration had decided to take direct control of the dissemination of information to the public, and by doing so, draw the fang from the terrorist’s mouth.

###

Harold Tanner sat at a breakfast table in the presidential suite with President Vanderbilt and Vice President Miller. Vanderbilt was eating breakfast while the others drank coffee. It was the morning of August 8.

“They knocked out twenty-two electrical distribution stations,” Tanner was saying, “along an almost straight line from Washington to Boston. Nobody hurt that we know of. The stations were mostly minor residential distribution points that could be easily rerouted. Nothing was hit that would seriously impact anything; no hospitals were deprived of critical power—nothing major at all.”

Vanderbilt smiled. “And why do you think that is, Harold?” he asked, his eyes crinkling in merriment as he cut his eggs.

“Obviously, they didn’t want to hurt anyone,” he said, “but they did demonstrate that they have the capability to fire again, Mr. President. In light of this, I think we had better assume they can do what they say.”

“You’re missing the most obvious point, Harold,” Vanderbilt said while spreading lemon marmalade on toasted English muffins. “They demonstrated two things. They demonstrated that they can fire, and they also showed me that they haven’t got the guts to make good on their threat.

“If they wanted to really throw a scare into the government, they would have obliterated Washington, or Hackensack, or Newport News. We’ve got the idealistic bastards by the short hairs, now. Ha! Mark my words, on the eleventh, those simpering, gutless patriots will chew up some more unoccupied turf somewhere, if they do anything at all, then their bluff will fizzle. It’s a standoff, Harold, and we’re holding all the cards worth having. A weapon is worthless if you haven’t got the balls to use it.”

“I take it you’re going to stay here and defy them,” said Tanner.

“Not on your tintype,” said Vanderbilt. “The one target they might hit, if they can work up the gumption, is the capitol.”

“What about warning the public?” Tanner asked.

Vanderbilt paused with a strip of bacon halfway to his mouth and looked hard at Tanner. “Don’t be a damned fool. What have I been saying, Tanner? If you start a panic, they’ve won. We can’t encourage them. As long as we ignore them, they’re impotent. The presence of the public is what insures that they won’t fire on a city.”

Vanderbilt resumed his ministrations with his food and said, more calmly, “No! They’ve just about run out of gas, both literally and figuratively,” he chuckled. “Now, if you will excuse me . . . Oh, on your way out, tell Dahner to come in. I’m going to leave for Palm Beach this evening. You boys can do as you like. Just no public leaks. I’ll be back on the fifteenth.”

Tanner exchanged a look with Miller. Miller’s face was as passive as ever, but Tanner noted a hard glint in his eyes. They got up and left together. When they reached the outer foyer at the end of the wing, Tanner stopped a moment and looked at Miller.

“Well, Joe, what happens now?”

Miller returned the look for a long moment, as if weighing his next words. “Don’t be in Washington on the eleventh,” he said. He turned and left.

XII

Joseph Miller left Harold Tanner standing in thought just outside the White House, and got into his dark-blue Lincoln sedan. He instructed his driver to take him home, and sinking back into the plushly upholstered seat, he wistfully observed people on the tree-shaded streets, going about their affairs, seemingly without any cares. Tourists in shorts and colorful tops, with Washington monuments and patriotic slogans emblazoned on them, gawking and taking photos. Kids in multi-hued recreation-wear laughing and playing, or trailing along, bored, as they tagged after their parents. Happy people on vacation, seemingly without a care in the world.

He knew their lives were not that simple, but in relation to the burden of foreknowledge that he carried, he envied them their blissful ignorance.

Miller had worked for years with the economic leaders of the world as a United States emissary to the European Economic Council. Most Americans, if they had heard of the EEC at all, had no idea what it actually was, or what its aims were.

Ostensibly, the objective of the EEC was to standardize currency and business practices between European states, and to further regional European interests in world commerce. By necessity, to some degree, they were involved in the control of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which of course included the United States and other western hemisphere countries. Over the years, they, too, had been infiltrated by wealthy corporate stockholders and bought advisors.

One of their stated objectives was the institution of a cashless society. The subject had already been broached in magazine “feeler” articles in the U.S. and elsewhere, just to gauge public reaction. As usual, there wasn’t much of one. There wouldn’t be until legislation began to be enacted, and too late, people became aware of what was happening.

The advantages of a cashless society that were touted to consumers included the convenience of paying bills and store purchases with one debit card and allowing the government to keep track of individual bank balances, interest accruals, etc. Miller smiled. Big Brother taking care of all that nasty, old bookkeeping for us.

Another benefit was the savings in government expenditures for the cost of printing currency. A few billions saved here and there added up to a good bit of pork that could be spent profitably, someplace else.

The unspoken downside was that the economic coalition espousing the “new world order” would then control world economic exchange. Individuals would not be able to sequester wealth in any significant amounts, and would be totally dependent on government regulators to keep a tally of their electronic capital.

It meant absolute economic control, since the government could freeze an individual bank account at any moment, and even feign “computer error,” if they wanted to do it without legal sanction. What tangible proof would there be? Everything would be based on electronic records, including property transactions, inventories of goods, home mortgages—everything but grass-roots barter would be regulated. Even that would be discouraged in the end, by force, if it became substantial enough to permit a large underground economy.

It was possibly the largest conspiracy in the history of the world. It was certainly the most ambitious criminal enterprise ever undertaken. Its goal was nothing less than total world domination.

Miller reflected back to a day in his office in Geneva, three years before. He had considered resigning his position, outraged by the discovery of their agenda, but then he had decided it would be better to play along. Announcing the plot to the world would only have confirmed what many intelligent insiders already suspected. It might have made a side-bar article in a few papers and news magazines, but it would have been downplayed by the respective governments and forgotten in a week. He would have been forgotten in a month. Position and stature were extremely tenuous these days. Accidents were so easily arranged.

No, if anything was to be done about it, it had to be done from the inside, or at least done by people with access to inside knowledge. Miller had decided to be that man. He had made himself invaluable to those within the circle. He had become an indispensable part of their plan by becoming the information filter, the nexus of communications and negotiations within the international economic brotherhood. He had even suggested a few ingenious methods for achieving their goals, in order to ingratiate himself to them.

And to that end, he had divorced the woman he loved dearly, his wife of four years. He thanked God that they had been unable to have children. He had distanced himself from her and her relations in order to protect them, to let them become anonymous again.

Miller remade himself into a man without a past, erasing official records of family, friends, acquaintances, school. He substituted a faultless history of an imaginary life, a life that might have been led by another Joseph Miller, if he had not died in an auto accident shortly after leaving military service in the 1970s. Birth records had been traded, along with social security accounts and early financial histories.

His low-profile, but powerful, position had been perfect to accomplish his ends. He had high-level access, without the surveillance incurred by public prominence.

When he was selected as Vanderbilt’s running mate, the false history had become concrete in the records of the world. There was no reason for anyone to doubt it, no need to probe into it. People he had never met remembered what he was like as a child—his girlfriends, his college pranks, his wonderful alter-ego parents that now rested under tombstones in Sadalia, Missouri.

Those innocent references had been told of secret military missions, of plastic surgery and a falsified death for their childhood chum, all for the sake of national security. It explained away their questions and substituted a mythic hero, someone they would immediately embrace with territorial pride and unreasoned defense.

As an only child, his other relations were either distant or dead, and easily handled by people passing as FBI agents. The hometown city fathers expressed regret that they hadn’t known him better, but one or two remembered his folks with fondness. His war record showed commendable service in the Desert Storm action during the early nineties. He was a hometown hero.

His cover was not only solid, but unquestionable because of its prominence and open simplicity. Nothing flashy, just a good, solid background. He hoped it would hold up for another few months, at any rate.

Miller sighed and looked inward, barely conscious of the light-and-shadow play of the trees and buildings on the windows of his passing car, and the humming rhythm of the tires on the brick-paved streets. He crossed the Potomac and headed toward Arlington. Bad times were coming.