So Matt did the only thing that worked in these situations. He reached into his pocket. Still avoiding the man’s eyes, he proffered everything he dug up – a crumpled dollar bill, several coins and some lint. Much to Matt’s surprise, however, the guy wouldn’t take it. He must be one of the many mentally unstable people that lived on the streets, Matt thought. He gave up, shoved the contents back into his pocket and pushed past.
The man kept pace and tried to place a piece of paper in Matt’s hand. Now Matt was back on familiar territory. A flyer from a local business.
“No, thanks, but here.” Matt again attempted to hand over the contents of his pocket.
“Please, take this. It’s the word of the Lord.” His shadow spoke for the first time.
“I’m not interested,” Matt replied firmly.
He couldn’t imagine what words the Lord would have for him at this point in his life, but they couldn’t be good.
“Matt, take it.” The shadow spoke urgently.
The familiarity shocked Matt. He stopped in his tracks.
“What? How did you …” He whirled around to face the stranger.
Matt struggled to make out the features from underneath a baseball cap pulled down low. Unshaven and with long greasy hair, sunburned and his lips parched, the man looked like every other homeless person Matt had sought to avoid. Then, the man lifted his head and looked directly at Matt from underneath the brim of his cap. His blue eyes pierced through Matt before they darted around the courtyard.
“Oh my God,” Matt exclaimed. “What the hell . .”
“Matt, just take this.” The man shoved the piece of paper into Matt’s hand and closed his fingers around it, his eyes still scanning the courtyard.
“But—” Before Matt could get anything else out, the shadow shuffled away and disappeared into the crowd.
Matt looked down at the scrap of paper in his hand. The word of the Lord instructed him to be at Jimbo’s at five o’ clock the next afternoon. The Lord’s messenger also told him to be careful as he was probably being followed.
By the time Matt looked up, Stephen Cross was gone.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LATE THE NEXT AFTERNOON, Matt once again headed over toward Scotty’s Landing. This time, he didn’t stop at the bar. Instead, he headed for the Grove Harbour Marina adjacent to the restaurant. The Marina had 90 boat slips and 260 dry dock storage spaces. Carlos, the dock master, was an old friend. After exchanging pleasantries and $200, Matt was behind the wheel of a 25-foot, center console open fisherman boat.
Matt pushed off the pier and stepped back behind the wheel. The boat was old, but the twin 250 Yamahas were relatively new and in great condition. Matt nudged the throttle and easily navigated the boat out of the slip. Standing behind the wheel, leaning against the leaning bench, Matt headed down the channel of the harbor. He maneuvered easily around the boats anchored and coming in and out while he scanned the bay for slow lumbering manatee.
As soon as he left the no-wake zone, Matt pressed down on the throttle. The engines immediately responded, and the boat raced toward open waters. He started to relax when the marina faded from view. Once completely out of sight to anyone on the shore, he changed direction and headed toward Key Biscayne. Matt was no expert at subterfuge and couldn’t really imagine that he was being followed. But he thought, in an abundance of caution, this might work. The $200 Matt paid Carlos also ensured that no one else would be able to borrow or rent a boat at the last minute as Matt had done.
Twenty minutes later he arrived at Jimbo’s Shrimp Shack on Virginia Key, the lesser known of the two barrier islands separating Miami from the Atlantic Ocean. Key Biscayne, the more commonly known of the two, had been developed as a luxury residential property. Virginia Key, on the other hand, was relatively untouched and offered the most privacy. Jimbo’s was a local watering hole located on the northeastern end of the island and tough to find unless you were local and had been there before.
As he approached the landing, Matt navigated around decrepit-looking houseboats that, if not abandoned, most definitely should have been. After shutting down the engines, Matt jumped off the boat and tied off the lines to the dilapidated pier. As he walked toward Jimbo’s, Matt looked back toward the ocean. There were no boats careening down the inlet spraying salt water in their wake. No cars blowing clouds of dust as they came barreling down the lone dirt road leading to Jimbo’s. Matt’s first attempt at subterfuge may have been successful, or perhaps Stephen’s paranoid delusions had been unfounded.
Jimbo’s was a throwback from simpler times. A ramshackle fish smokehouse that started as a gathering spot for fishermen had became the quintessential South Florida watering hole for characters ranging from crusty old sea dogs to City of Miami politicos. The roof of the main structure was leaning in, the house jam-packed with lobster traps and old fishing gear. As a result, patrons sat outside in lawn chairs and even a few Lazy Boy recliners that had found their way there. When the weather was cold, patrons huddled around bonfires created in old steel drums filled with whatever had washed ashore that couldn’t be salvaged. The trees shading Jimbo’s were lit up with outdoor Christmas lights, illuminating the tree branches the year around. From fishing lines tied to the branches hung beer cans, empty bottles of alcohol, plastic cups and deflated beach balls and inner tubes. This completed the look of the strangest all-season holiday tree.
Matt walked slowly around the main structure and to the booths located on the other side of the house. On the way, Matt checked out the bocce ball court and surrounding tables for any sign of Stephen. The only patrons were two old guys sitting in aluminum lawn chairs in front of the bonfire and four other people playing a game of bocce ball. One of the players was the bartender. He looked up briefly to acknowledge Matt with a nod before tossing the ball high in the air. It fell in the sand with a muted thud before rolling into his opponent’s ball, pushing it out of the way. Matt grabbed a Bud Light from the cooler and placed two dollars under the rock on the table next to the cooler. He settled into a lawn chair some distance away from the bocce ball players.
Thirty minutes later he was still waiting. Matt had just begun to worry that he had lost Stephen again when a shadow whispered behind him and a man slipped into the empty chair next to him.
“Hello, Matt,” Stephen said as he settled into the seat.
“Man, am I glad to see you,” Matt said urgently as he leaned toward Stephen and clapped him on the shoulder. Stephen returned the greeting.
As Stephen opened his own beer, Matt surveyed his old friend. Stephen’s usually neat blond hair hung slick and stringy to his shoulders. His face hadn’t seen the sharp end of a razor in quite some time. His clothes hung loosely on his frame, and yesterday’s T-shirt was another day riper.
“I’ve been trying to reach you since I got back,” Matt began.
“Sorry about that, Matt, but I’ve been off the grid.”
“I can see that. But I’ve been really worried about you.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, when I couldn’t get hold of you, I went to your place—”
“You were at my apartment?”
“Yeah. When you didn’t return my messages, I decided to check on you in New York. And, well … After, seeing your place, I only got more concerned.” Matt hesitated when he saw the look on Stephen’s face. “I hate to be the one to tell you this, man, but it was trashed.”
When Matt was finished giving him the details, Stephen shook his head. “I’m not surprised. I’ve pissed off a few people.”
“What’s going on, Stephen?”
For several seconds, Stephen didn’t say anything. He simply stared out at the water in front of them.
“Since you’ve been back,” he began slowly. “I’m sure you’ve noticed the media’s take on the situation in the Middle East. The coverage has been a little weak, to say the least.”
“Sure, anyone who’s been to the Middle East couldn’t help but notice that the m
edia has done a piss-poor job on their coverage of what’s going on over there. But what the hell does that have to do with anything? With all this secrecy, your apartment, you,” Matt gestured at Stephen.
“Actually, I believe it has everything to do with what happened to my apartment and… so much more.”
“You’d better fill me in then, Stephen, because I’m not sure I understand.”
“Listen, Matt, you don’t want to get involved in this. That’s actually the reason I wanted to meet with you — to warn you.” Stephen leaned in toward Matt. “You need to walk away from this.”
“Walk away from what, Stephen?” Matt replied. “What the hell’s going on?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Matt grabbed Stephen’s arm. “Yes, I do,” he insisted. “If you’re in trouble, I want to help.”
The men looked at each other for several seconds. Stephen was the first to break away. He got up and walked toward the shack. Just as Matt began to wonder whether Stephen had disappeared again, his old friend returned holding two beers. He passed one to Matt before settling back into his chair.
“When I got back from the Middle East, I noticed there was a lot of misinformation about what was going on over there,” Stephen began. “At first, I thought it presented a great opportunity for me. I had real-time information that I thought would be highly marketable. But as I continued my research, I realized there was something more going on.”
Matt nodded his head in agreement. “I know what you’re talking about. For me, since I’ve gotten back, the only thing more astounding than the information gap was the general indifference about that gap among members of the news media and the editors.”
“Exactly. It seemed that even the so-called liberal media outlets weren’t interested in the facts. At first, I was shocked, then I was intrigued. It was around this time that I got in touch with Bob. He and I began to discuss the idea of media manipulation.”
“Bob Sandberg was involved in this?” Matt asked, a black hole starting to open in his gut.
“Yeah,” Stephen confirmed. “I needed his help, his connections.”
Bob had significant contacts. Matt recalled that he had used his relationships in Washington to get himself admitted into the embed program when it was originally instituted during the Bush Administration. From there, he had a bird’s-eye view of the war on terror, literally and figuratively. Stephen and Matt got a good laugh every time they caught a flash of Bob in a brand-new flight jacket reporting live while perched on top of an M-88 tank recovery vehicle in a convoy flying toward Baghdad. When the attention turned to Afghanistan, Bob had been able to use those same contacts to get strategically placed there as well. Meanwhile, Stephen and Matt — who decided to take the moral high ground and not join the embed program — were left wandering around on their own scavenging for whatever news scraps they could find.
“With Bob’s help, I figured out that the news about the events in the Middle East wasn’t merely the result of sloppy reporting or the failure of the media to combat the spin-doctors in the White House. Unfortunately,” Stephen continued. “we also discovered just how serious the group behind this is about keeping their not-so-little secret.”
“Stephen,” Matt interrupted, “start at the beginning. Just what did you and Bob figure out.”
“Well, I don’t need to remind you about the fake accounts of what was happening over there in the beginning.”
“Of course not,” Matt said. “I know that from the beginning of the War on Terror, the media was all too happy to pass along the government’s description of the events without question. In some cases, they simply regurgitated what the government spat out. But we learned from that. The media’s not falling for that crap anymore.”
“Oh, I think we learned from it alright, but I don’t think everyone learned the same lesson. Some of us — like you and me — learned to be a little bit more skeptical. But, others … well, others figured that there were opportunities to use the media to influence the public.”
“What do you mean?”
“Bob found out that a small public relations firm is behind most of the press coming out about what’s going on in the Middle East and that the firm is intentionally providing misinformation.”
“Let me guess,” interrupted Matt. “Information Management Services.”
“How did you know?” Stephen asked.
“You and Bob aren’t the only ones who know how to do a little digging,” Matt replied.
“Yeah. Bob and his digging …” Stephen said as he shook his head sadly. “We met several times and talked about these things. He got me the identity of the PR firm and the group that’s behind it. From there, I was able to use another contact to get more information. But, there’s no way I could have figured this all out without Bob.”
Matt leaned in close. “What happened, Stephen?”
“Those assholes killed him,” Stephen spat out. “That’s what happened.”
Matt was stunned. Despite Marie’s earlier insistence that Bob’s death was no accident and Stephen’s declaration, Matt struggled with accepting that Bob had been murdered.
“Are you sure about this, Stephen?” Matt finally asked.
“No doubt in my mind, Matt,” Stephen replied. “Bob discovered that IMS was hired by someone — we don’t know who — to manage a public relations campaign in the United States.”
“To do what?”
“As far as we can tell, they are working hard to promote a very specific picture of what’s going on in the Middle East,” Stephen responded. “They have been the driving force behind some documentaries on the progress that has been made over there. They’ve also been behind several articles touting the new governments in Iraq and Afghanistan and the great job they’re supposedly doing bringing democracy to the region. This firm is also the money behind a not-for-profit organization that has written several research papers about the benefits of fossil fuels over alternative energy sources. This PR firm is being paid to create news that is specifically intended to put a positive spin on what’s going on in the Middle East. “
“That’s what PR firms do.” Matt interrupted.
“That’s true,” Stephen conceded. “But we know from our own experiences over in the Middle East that what they’re reporting isn’t true. And these guys do more than just spit out positive press releases that people know came from a public relations firm and can interpret the information through that lens and as they deem appropriate. They spread their spin in such a way that it looks like an unbiased report. We were able to track the language from their press releases and link it to several hard news articles — with the exact same language. They’re able to get legitimate news organizations to take their reports — that are factually incorrect – and publish them as news.”
Matt thought about this for a minute. He had to admit that he could see the value of an effective PR campaign. The City of Miami had to do something similar after several tourists became victims of a series of carjackings that occurred over a period of several months. A number of cars with out-of-state license plates that had ended up lost in the wrong part of town were stopped by groups of very organized street thugs waiting for just this opportunity. The occupants were robbed and terrorized at gunpoint and, in a few cases, someone had been shot. When news of this specific form of attack had gone public, there was a significant drop in tourism, Miami’s primary source of income.
So the City Commission authorized the placement of better signage pointing out-of-towners in the direction of the airport, hotels and tourist attractions. But the city didn’t stop there. They also authorized the spending of millions of dollars on PR firms that coordinated a massive marketing campaign designed to assure the public that the city was safe, highlight all of the fun and exciting activities the city had to offer and downplay the escalating poverty and crime that plagued many pockets of the city. The campaign was a huge success. It didn’t take long for the tourists to forget ab
out the history of violence. Once they did, the land of sandy beaches, turquoise water and pink flamingos became popular again.
“I get it, Stephen. But, how does a PR firm have the power to influence the press to that extent?” Matt asked.
“It’s easier than you think,” answered Stephen. “All it takes is one lazy paper to pick up a self-serving press release, not vet it properly and publish it verbatim as news. Then voila! a puff piece becomes fact. If that story is picked up and repeated enough times, nobody remembers where it came from, certainly not whether it came from a legitimate news source.”
“The echo effect,” Matt said. An information source will make a claim, which people will then repeat over and over again. Like the game of telephone, the message will become distorted, frequently exaggerated. But in the end, most people will assume that the story — or some variation of the story — is true.
“That’s right,” Stephen confirmed. “And if you’ve got a PR firm that can put out enough press releases, documentaries and white papers, you can create the illusion that the message is coming from different sources and that it must be true.”
“A PR firm really has that much influence?” Matt asked.
Stephen nodded. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Matt, in the struggle between quality unbiased content generated by paid professional journalists and self-serving material generated from other sources, quality content is getting its ass kicked.”
“And you really think this information — or misinformation campaign — somehow got Bob killed?”
“Yeah. I think it did.”
“A man was killed over spin?” Matt said shaking his head in disbelief.
“There’s a lot at stake,” Stephen said interrupting Matt’s thoughts. “Billions of dollars. Lives. Reputations. World standing. Enough to kill for.”
“Assuming you’re right, Stephen, how did they find found out about Bob and what you guys were doing?”
Operation Mockingbird Page 9