“Did you miss me?” he looked down at the little guy, who smiled at the sound of his voice. “You heard me working, didn’t you?” he carried him tenderly down the hall and placed him on his lap in front of the screen. Before them flashed images of colorful Sesame Street characters, who talked directly to the little boy conjured from the senator’s previously stored memory. “hi, Max!” said Ernie. Max laughed, clapped his hands in delight, and immediately threw up in the lap of his esteemed father. As the fetid liquid dripped from his lap onto the ornate Persian rug, the senator jumped up and ran in search of a towel, holding his baby boy in front of him at arm’s length. As he dashed down the hall toward the pantry, Max giggled at the game he had created.
“What do they use to clean this stuff up? Powder? No! The white bottle!” he sniffed, and the ammonia fumes nearly took his head off. “That ought to do.” he placed Max in his crib and ran down the hall to the waiting mess. The leak on the leather chair was easy to wipe away. It was the puddle on the rug that took some rubbing. he poured more of the liquid onto the stain.
u
The next morning, when the nanny arrived to assume her matronly duties, she found the old man in his bathrobe, the little boy asleep in his arms in the plush leather recliner of the den. The boy’s head rested against his chest. She looked down at the white oval on the rug and shook her head. That spot won’t be coming out anytime soon, she thought, shaking her head. Tenderly, she pulled Max from his father’s arms, while the senator slept in apparent bliss. After his son left his arms, his forehead creased. A bad dream again, she thought as she stared at the screen in front of the recliner. Images of men in identical suits, milling in the Senate chamber with angry faces, filled the screen. She tiptoed back to the nursery, the little boy sleeping openmouthed, his head on her breast.
u ChAPTER FOUR
In the plush comfort of the recliner, Masterson’s mind slipped back to the Washington years. The dream was as clear as if it was happening in real life. The voices were distinct, and the colorful details of the setting were real. The monitor flickered for a moment, and then the scene was vividly displayed on the screen before him, recorded from his brain waves. The neural monitor was still monitoring his brain waves in his sleep, and although the event was ten years in the past, his memories brought the details back to life.
The senator conducted all of his life’s activities on the hour principle. During his term in the Senate, many years ago, the idea of a filibuster to block a bill was so repugnant to him that he voted against his own party just to avoid sitting through the long hours of monotony. he earned the nickname “Minuteman Masterson.” Although the description lacked the accuracy he would have required if he had coined the phrase, the name stuck. his friends from the Senate, old colleagues from the press, and even the president of the United States referred to him as Minuteman.
In his meetings of the Senate Intelligence Committee years before, the senator could see the writing on the wall. Anyone who used the internet, drove a car, voted, talked on a cell phone, or went to the doctor was subject to surveillance by the government and the agencies that were created for that purpose. Privacy for Americans was disappearing, and Senator Masterson openly displayed his contempt for anyone who chose to assault the basic rights of law-abiding people. he fidgeted through day after day of classified briefings by law enforcement and national security agencies, all designed to erode the freedoms of the people who had voted him into office. The legislation before his committee expanded the type and amount of information that government could squeeze from records, extract from conversations, and extrapolate from everyday activities in the search for terrorists.
“I have heard all of this talk about how you need to root out these terrorists in our midst, Director.” The senator addressed Adam Pryor, director of homeland Security, as he had on hundreds of previous occasions, and his disdain for the man was legendary among his peers.
“What I want to know, for the umpteenth time, is how do you decide who you gather information about. From what I’ve heard, that big computer in that big building in my home state of Florida is busily gathering information on every man, woman, and child in our great country, and then it filters out the bad guys based upon profiles of the words they use . . . isn’t that right, Mr. Director?” he had long ago stopped masking his tone to temper his words.
“Well, Senator, we don’t use the information we gather against law-abiding Americans.” Minuteman Masterson had his opponent on the ropes, blissfully aware that Pryor would never be comfortable with his persistent grilling. The director was obviously weary of the subpoenas generated by the committee chairman.
“Well, once again, we have gone full circle. You gather the information about law-abiding citizens. You never throw it away because you don’t know when down the road you might need it, and I’m supposed to sit here and take your word that somebody in government won’t abuse this invasion of my privacy . . .”
“Senator, I only meant—”
”Don’t talk while I’m summarizing your testimony, or I will have you bound and gagged. Do you understand me?” he leaned back in his chair and continued, “. . . and the privacy of all Americans, because the government would never do that sort of thing, is that your testimony?”
“Senator, I am here under subpoena, and I have been sworn to tell the truth, and as God is my witness, I—”
“Don’t bring God into this. You will someday meet your maker, but today, you’re mine. I don’t trust you or any of the people who have their security clearance to tap into that information, to steal my words and use them against me, and neither should anyone who has had their privacy stolen by their own government,” he pronounced loudly. “You are excused from this subpoena, but you are subject to recall at any time I decide to have your sorry ass back in this committee room.” Masterson slammed his large notebook shut with a bang. The other committee members jumped at the sound but sat speechless.
The memory was displayed on the large screen before him, and even though he was dreaming, the experience was as real as if it had happened seconds before. The sound of the notebook startled him awake, wondering for a moment where he was, and he sat in silence for a long time. Rising at last, he directed the machine to sign off and walked down the hall for his morning coffee.
u ChAPTER FIVE
Masterson rowed his titanium and carbon rowing shell on the mirror-smooth surface of the Potomac as he had done many times before. he thought back over the years in which he had presided over the Senate Intelligence Committee, its constant challenges, triumphs, and disappointments. his fitness regimen called for three times on the water each week, but he was lucky to get in two with his busy schedule. The graphite oars feathered the surface into ripples that quickly disappeared, a repetition that lulled his mind into a state of alert relaxation. he took a mental inventory of the path that had brought his beloved country to the precipice. In one decade, beginning with the terrorist attacks of 9/11, a series of “government reforms” were launched.
Over the ensuing years, the massive intelligence and military community gained the ability to hear and see anyone at any time or place. They had access to medical and psychiatric records, sealed court files, internet data galore, even library cards. They knew where you were going, who traveled with you, what you charged on your credit card, and what you ate for dinner. They developed devices that could see through walls, and surveillance devices were standard equipment in all of the electronics in the home. The intelligence community was massive and eminently capable of intruding into the lives of Americans, and did so, on a continuous basis.
By the time he left Congress, Masterson had voted against thirty bills that gave the Department of homeland Security increased powers to intrude, but his nemesis, Pryor, had prevailed. Masterson was a member of a small minority who refused to rubber stamp the new laws. his terms in the Senate saw the president’s national security advisor morph into the secretary of intelligence, a position that co
ntrolled the combined might of the FBI, NSA, and CIA. All of it was legislated into existence to deter terrorism and promote national security, but the unintended effect was that they could direct their attention to anyone anywhere, and law-abiding Americans lost their right to be left alone.
he steered the rowing shell toward the dock. It happened every time; each time he thought back over his gradual loss of control of the committee—his own domain—he rowed faster until he reached his maximum heart rate, and the day’s exercise came to an end. he seethed at the thought that he had presided over the stealthy erosion of a right he had taken an oath to uphold.
After twenty-four years of distinguished service representing the state of Florida from Pensacola to Miami, he had finally reached the point where he had enough of politics. It resulted mainly from his failed attempts at passing legislation that protected the privacy rights of Americans. Every man, woman, and child in the nation lost the ability to be free from random surveillance by the government, and as long as he had a good breath in his body, he would not give up.
he pulled the rowing shell into his private boathouse and activated the sling that raised it out of the water. As he cleaned his gear with fresh water sprayed from the hose and stowed the oars and rowing vest into their assigned spots, he thought of the big picture. It was insidious how Congress had done the unthinkable, but over a period of years, they had stolen a basic right from the American people: The right to be left alone.
u ChAPTER SIX
The senator drove his classic Jaguar XKR convertible slowly down the long driveway toward the house. Although the car was designed for high speed touring on winding roads, he liked to savor his “return to sanity” by driving his lengthy entrance road at little more than an idle, searching for wildlife and shedding the effects of urban clutter that he felt whenever he drove to the Capitol. While a trip into the city gave him the feeling of being closed in, the approach to home had the opposite effect. By the time he pulled the Jag into its pampered space in the garage, he had decompressed enough to let out a sigh that only comfortable surroundings can induce.
he walked through the private tunnel from the garage to the house and considered the news of the day. During his return from the confines of D.C., his ever-active mind had conjured a strategy for protecting Max from the ravages of society, and while it was hot in his mind, he was anxious to sit for ideas.
The concept of sitting for ideas is not new to brilliant, productive people. It involves a process of withdrawing from distractions and entering the mind, where the journey begins. Inside the mind, the creative, ever-active state, once achieved, produces thoughts that flow continuously. Seemingly random ideas can frequently provide the solutions to problems, strategies for complex accomplishments, and new inventions. Depending on the creative bent of the traveler, sitting for ideas can lead the mind down one expected path or the other or shoot off into the realm of the unknown.
The senator’s journey of sitting for ideas took place in a small room off of the study, where a small unadorned desk and a chair, upholstered with memory foam covered with a soft micro-fiber, faced a blank wall. On the desk, a pen and a legal pad were the only items necessary. he sat in the chair and focused his thoughts. Microprocessors in the chair detected his brain waves and projected his thoughts on the wall in front of the desk. he had to focus, and the first ten or fifteen minutes were spent getting rid of the “garbage” as he called the fragments of thoughts, memories that were irrelevant to the issues he chose to focus upon. Even childhood memories bubbled to the surface and were soon gone. When he focused, his mind eventually got to the items he was interested in dealing with.
Max was his focus today. he had just left a think-tank meeting of the Patriot Group, a secret society of sorts, whose primary cause was the preservation and promotion of the American way of life. Their discussion that morning was the extent to which the right to privacy had been eroded by technology and security fears. The consensus of the group was that by the use of technology in society, individual rights had disappeared. Privacy, the right to be left alone, was gone. By accessing records indexed by social security numbers, street addresses, cell phones, and credit card statements, almost anything that had been recorded could be brought to one location. Anything that had ever been entered into a computer database or the internet was accessible in a microsecond, to be sorted and used for any purpose, and there were no secrets from the electronic grasp of government surveillance.
his child was going to need protection from unwanted intrusion into his life. he resolved that he would never ask for nor allow Max to have a social security number or ID card. his medical needs would be met by a personal physician who made house calls and signed a strict confidentiality agreement. The doctor would be paid handsomely for providing exclusive medical care to the Masterson family, but it was necessary to maintain the privacy of their lives.
No computer records were to be kept. Blood tests would be performed in-house, and the results anonymously maintained in the doctor’s excellent mind. No driver’s license, either, although he suspected that Max would rebel against this idea when he became old enough to drive. No purchases by credit in his name or Max’s. Those duties would be performed by a proxy shopper, who would purchase anything from razors to plane tickets. he planned all of it, his mind reaching forward to the day when Max would be an adult and subjected to the microscope of scrutiny that accompanies any venture into the political world.
u ChAPTER SEVEN
his office in the Congressional Office Building had been adorned with artifacts and mementoes from the Jefferson administration. Various inventions of his lifetime hero were on display in the outer office. Jefferson’s hunting rifle and powder flask hung over the expansive fireplace in his comfortable study. It was a place that held memories both pleasant and sinister.
As a result of his long term in the Senate and his chairmanship of the Intelligence Committee, his office also displayed numerous handshake pictures and awards. A thorough review of this wealth of acclaim, though, did not reveal partisanship. Democrats and Republicans, American Indians and Indira Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Muhammad Ali, Prince William and harry and Lady Diana, all adorned his walls. All of the photographs were basically the same; the senator stood smiling next to each famous person shaking hands with each.
The day after Senator Masterson announced his retirement, the entire office was cleared, its contents packed in large wooden crates and transported to the Smithsonian Institution for public display. A special room was meticulously prepared duplicating his office at the Capitol, and three days later, went on public display to become a part of the enormous collection of national memories too important to discard.
Masterson declined to appear at the public dedication. he couldn’t be located at his Virginia estate, and messages from friends on his cell phone went unanswered. Finally, the storage capacity of his answering service was reached, and callers were met with a video image of the former senator in casual clothes, explaining that he was unavailable for the foreseeable future and would not be returning any calls until he had completed “a little project of mine.” John Masterson had a plan to take all of it back, and he considered it as devout an act of patriotism as his mind could conceive. If he succeeded, he would save the country he loved from a tyranny worse than any dictatorship ever created, and he wasn’t willing to waste a single minute setting it in motion.
The project was named “Closed Door,” a reference to the ambitious goal of protecting the right of citizens to be left alone. They had a right, he reasoned, to disclose information only to those who had their permission and to deny access to the snoopers, who had the unlimited ability to use their private information to hurt them. Most times, the information gathered was innocuous, the indicia of living in a technological society. But it was the mass of it, the sheer volume of information that was mindlessly stored on databases that had the potential to intrude and hurt.
“I brought you all here fo
r a noble purpose,” he announced to the fifty information technology experts he had assembled in a large conference room, all of whom were well aware of his reputation as a straight shooter. “I am paying you big bucks to save the ability of Americans to be Americans, to hold themselves apart from the rest of the world.”
They drank coffee as they listened to the legendary “Minuteman,” who had retired with his head held high, unlike most of his colleagues who had either been carried out feet first or slunk away in hushed disgrace after resigning “to spend more time with my family.”
“You are the best people I could find to make this project a success. I want to build a way to extract private citizens’ information from the internet and give them the right to decide when and with whom they are going to share it.” his words were met with a brief silence as the technicians pondered the problem and the solution, followed by a low muttering as several of them began to frantically scribble notes on yellow legal pads. Masterson waited and watched as their collective minds began to work.
Eventually, a small man in the center of the room stood. he was obviously the de facto leader of the group, and all deferred to him. It was the familiar face of Martin hilliard, a physicist who had gained fame in artificial intelligence. Years earlier, he developed a program that improved the odds of winning at blackjack as each card was dealt. his idea caused a temporary loss at casinos around the world until the casino operators discovered implanted signaling devices in the ear canal of the winners. By that time, hundreds of millions of dollars had been won, which was shared on a 50/50 basis with hilliard. he was fabulously wealthy, but he hadn’t taken his wealth and gone home. he was now using his brilliance to solve more important problems, and today he was in his element.
“Senator, we know of ways to keep new information from being released, and we know how to construct safeguards in a program that will prevent hackers from getting to it, but whatever is already out there can’t be retrieved and protected.” he paused for effect, letting his words sink in.
At Risk of Winning (The Max Masterson Series Book 1) Page 2