Viral

by James Lilliefors

  “Wanted to talk with you,” he said. “Didn’t have time to go through the usual channels. Can you let me in?”

  The apartment had been renovated since he’d been there but still looked like something from the 1960s, which it was. Curved walls, glass block dividers. The sliding glass doors to the terrace were open, the wraparound porch providing a view of the Potomac, the Kennedy Center, and Georgetown. “Aren’t you worried about surveillance?”

  “Not as much as I used to be. Have a seat,” Charlie said.

  “All right.” Franklin turned down the classical music on the stereo. “Well,” he said, sitting on a low-slung powder blue sofa. “Congratulations.”

  “What for?”

  “I understand you took out Isaak Priest.”

  “No. I had nothing to do with it, actually.” Franklin watched him, not revealing anything. “What’s going to happen now, Richard?”

  “Well, I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “The truth would be good. For a start.”

  Franklin shook his head, as if he didn’t know what he was talking about. And that was when Charles Mallory saw that he hadn’t figured this quite right. Franklin was a step ahead of him.

  “Unfortunately, Charlie, some things have changed since the last time we spoke. I wish they hadn’t. And it wasn’t my decision, believe me.” He took a deliberate breath. “You’re not going to be involved in the follow-up on this, okay? Your operation had very clear parameters. You succeeded. Your company will be compensated with a generous final payment.”

  He seemed too assured, but in a mechanical way, as if reciting a script. He opened and closed his reading glasses.

  “Whose decision?”

  “Not mine.”

  “McCormack.”

  “Mmm. There’re some delicate negotiations ahead that won’t involve you.” He feigned a weak smile. “And, I hate to have to tell you this, but there have also been some ethical concerns raised. Some of which are reflecting on me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The fact that you handed the details of a classified operation to your brother to write about. That violates our agreement.”

  Charlie opened the front of his shirt so Richard Franklin could see his gun. Franklin had given up his brother to Gardner. He was sure of that now. Franklin had created a fictitious identity for Jon, as Charlie had requested. But then he had given him up. To protect something. And to prevent him from writing the story. Why?

  “What’s going on, Charlie?”

  “Nothing. Let’s just talk, okay?” Charlie sat on the sofa arm. Franklin seemed to stiffen. “My father saw what was coming a year ago. He tried to warn the government, didn’t he?”

  Franklin eyed him steadily. “I wasn’t involved in that, Charlie. I don’t know what happened a year ago.”

  “You knew the real reason his inquiry was shut down, though. You couldn’t afford to have any of this come out.”

  Franklin shook his head once, looking down at his glasses.

  “You couldn’t just say no when I asked you for that report. Instead, you overcompensated. You redacted things that weren’t necessary to redact. Even the name of the person who wrote the memorandum. The person who signed off on it.” He watched Franklin, to see his reaction. Nothing. “Was it the government that invented Isaak Priest, Richard?”

  “No.” He began to smile. “Of course not.”

  “It makes a strange sort of sense if they did. An aggressive, shadowy African businessman who could go into poor, troubled countries, his pockets stuffed with almost unlimited cash. Buy up property and favors, help local businesses, cut deals with corrupt officials. Set up the groundwork for your investments. Start with the easiest, most vulnerable places. Unstable places like Mancala and Sundiata. Places we can’t get to any other way. That’s what we need, isn’t it? We need influence in the developing world, because that’s where the future is. That’s where future growth is going to be, and a lot of those places we can’t get in. We don’t have a single permanent military base right now in Africa, for example, do we? We’re still not trusted in a lot of places.”

  Franklin’s eyes were steady. “I can’t comment, Charlie. But what you’re speculating on happened before we knew about it. Okay? That operation was already in place.”

  Before we knew about it. Charles Mallory paused for a moment to process that. But couldn’t. Not yet. “Someone devised this, Richard. Someone saw the whole picture and still sees the whole picture, and it wasn’t Isaak Priest.”

  “I couldn’t comment, Charlie. I wish I could. But, as I say, it’s not your concern anymore. You’re no longer involved. You’re going to have to accept that.” He sighed. “And let’s put our cards on the table. There are some people who think you can be indicted and imprisoned for passing along classified information. I’m not one of them, but I’m just telling you the score.”

  “Don’t bluff me, Richard. This isn’t about what I told my brother.”

  “It’s a story that can’t come out,” Franklin said, shifting his tone. Glancing quickly at the Potomac River. “Okay? It’s too dangerous. For a variety of reasons.”

  “Why did you really want Isaak Priest taken out?” Mallory said, ignoring him.

  “You know why. Look at what he was preparing to do. I mean, we had to stop that—”

  “No. I don’t think that’s it, Richard. I think you needed him to set this up. But once it was operational, you needed him taken out because you wanted to weaken his hold. And to weaken his partner. Landon Pine’s partner.”

  Franklin suddenly seemed trapped. He wasn’t going to deny this; he was going to steer the conversation elsewhere. And Charlie began to imagine a different end game: Why couldn’t the government just step in now and take over? What had Pine said? “I’m the target they gave you, aren’t I?”

  “There are things you don’t know about, Charlie. Okay?”

  “Really.”

  “Yes. And things that I can’t talk about. But if I could, I’m sure you would agree they make perfect sense.”

  “You think so.”

  “Yes, I do. You would appreciate these things, if I was able to explain them to you. With your government and military background.”

  “Like Covenant Division?”

  His eyes froze for an instant. “What would you know about that?”

  “These days, there are few real secrets anymore. I’m surprised Covenant has remained a secret this long.”

  Franklin shook his head once. He said nothing.

  “Was Priest a product of Covenant Division?”

  “You’re fishing, Charlie.”

  “Wasn’t he created by Covenant Division to expand American interests into the developing world? A wealthy, generous but unscrupulous African businessman, with control over a Third World banking network. Owner of a huge construction conglomerate and an import/export business. Who could go into these poor, troubled nations and buy up property and influence.”

  “No.”

  Charlie was fishing, making it up as he went along, but he kept going, waiting to be corrected. “It would be easy to justify, wouldn’t it? Just imagine a worst-case scenario—jihadists are already looking to infiltrate some of Africa’s most troubled countries, and to gain a foothold. To use them as a base, as training grounds for all sorts of atrocities. Atrocities ten times worse than 9/11. There’s a big fear about that right now in Washington, isn’t there? And the fact is, Americans can’t get in. Priest provided a different route. Your plan could have worked. It still might work.”

  Franklin made a scoffing sound, but his face had paled.

  “The trials in Sundiata were the first step,” Mallory said, “to see if it could be contained in a region. The government knew all about that. Mancala was to be next—”

  “You’re fishing, Charlie,” Franklin said again, raising his voice to cut him off. “You’ve got a lot of theories, and I’m not going to comment on them because I can’t. But your
basic premise is wrong. The government didn’t create Isaak Priest. He’d already been created. He already existed.”

  Mallory heard in the tenor of his voice something new. A truth he desperately wanted to convey. Something Charlie didn’t know.

  “When did the United States government become a part of it, then?” Charlie slowly lifted his gun and aimed it at Franklin.

  “When we didn’t have a choice.”

  Charlie watched his onetime mentor, considering Franklin’s words carefully. “What are you saying, that the government was forced to go along with this?”

  “I’d rather not put it so crudely,” he said. “It was in motion before the government found out about it. And then we were given a choice. An opportunity.”

  “It came to Covenant Division.”

  He nodded very slightly. “It became an opportunity,” he said. “Become a part of it or let it go somewhere else. If it got away from us, it would be a threat to everyone. To world stability. Okay? We couldn’t be excluded and we couldn’t ignore it. On the other hand, we saw an incredible opportunity—the chance to create a new model that would eventually lift up the Third World. I’m sure you can appreciate that.”

  So Gardner, in effect, blackmailed the United States government with this project, Charlie thought. Hostile takeover. Not of a corporation, but a government. A nation.

  They fight different wars. What Isaak Priest said.

  “In other words, Gardner came to you with this proposition. You brought him in because you felt you didn’t have a choice. But you didn’t want him in control. That’s not how the government does things. You wanted me to get Priest as a way to strip power from Gardner. Priest had already set this up, through Gardner. It was operational. It’s really a power struggle over control of Covenant Division now, isn’t it? You hired me to bring down Priest—Landon Pine—to diminish his partner, Perry Gardner. That’s what this really is.”

  “Charlie. I’m not going to talk about that.”

  “Isn’t that what Covenant Division does? Identify potential threats against the United States and then eliminate them? Demographics is the coming war. The invisible war. That’s what my father thought. That’s why he was killed.”

  “Charlie, you’re not wrong. But I can’t talk about it, okay? Don’t you understand? Perry Gardner’s firm is a threat. Because technology is a threat. The technology his company has developed could make the United States technologically obsolete if we let it. So we chose to bring him in, rather than bring him down. That’s our mission. It’s a win-win.” Franklin looked at the gun. “What are you going to do, shoot me?”

  “Probably not. I’m not sure yet.” He stared into Franklin’s steady hazel eyes. “Where’s Gardner right now?”

  “How would I know?”

  “You have to know. You must’ve met with him yesterday.”

  “Don’t do this, Charlie.”

  “Why not?”

  “Listen to me.” For a moment, he closed his eyes and grimaced. “This goes way beyond you and me, Charlie. You can’t put it out there as a story. Stopping the event is one thing. Putting it out as a story is another.”

  “How can this not come out as a story?”

  Franklin sighed, and Charlie saw a new calm in his face. “Which story are we talking about, now?” Franklin said.

  “What they were planning to do. What they have in place. What you have in place. In Africa.”

  “That’s one story,” he said. “Okay? There are others, too. Other, better stories that, frankly, contradict it.”

  “I know. Like Trent. Olduvai. Deceptions.”

  So were those, too, created by the government?

  “Look, Charlie.” Mallory set the gun on his leg, sensing that Franklin wanted to tell him the truth. “What would happen if the story you are referring to came out and was believed? In Europe. In Africa. In the Middle East. What would that do to our country, do you think?”

  Charlie watched him, beginning to understand.

  “Sometimes, deception is necessary,” Franklin said. “You wouldn’t be in the business you’re in if you didn’t grasp that. If people were aware of everything that went on in the world—of the tragedies and injustices occurring every day, right this minute—what would happen? Could they function? How could they justify their own lives?

  “This goes beyond you and me, Charlie. Look, I’m going to tell you something now that I’m not supposed to. It doesn’t matter because you can’t do anything with it. It’s just a fact. Maybe it’ll help you understand and make the right decision.”

  Make the right decision.

  “Please,” he said. “Tell me.”

  “This isn’t about the government, Charlie. It’s about an idea.” He took a deep breath. “Sometimes, deception—as you’re using the word—is warranted because of what it brings about. Every time a politician or a business leader gives a speech, there’s a degree of deception going on, at some level. When it inspires people to live better lives, then that isn’t a bad thing. When it brings out our better natures, deception can be a good thing.”

  Franklin was still playing his role as mentor, to see if Charles Mallory would assume his role as student. Charlie nodded.

  “What about when it doesn’t?”

  “Then the public sees through the deception and eventually it’s replaced with something else.”

  “Give me an example.”

  “A president saying we can win a war in Southeast Asia that can’t be won. Another president who breaks the law and insists he’s not a crook. Okay? I could go on.”

  Mallory blinked.

  “The public eventually saw through those because they were imperfect deceptions. What I’m talking about is something different.”

  “Imperfect, in what sense?”

  “Imperfect because they were human deceptions, self-deceptions. Fallibilities. When we saw through them, they did bring out our better natures. They helped us redefine who we are. But there is also something else, which is what I’m really talking about.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “It’s something that’s built into the fabric of this country, and makes it different from any other country. You can’t see it, but it’s there. It’s not a government, it’s not the people. It’s an idea.” He set his glasses down on the sofa, watching Charlie. “And it’s too important, too valuable to ever be endangered again.

  “That’s why we keep a military that’s almost double the size of every other military in the world combined,” he continued. “It’s there to defend and protect an idea.”

  “That’s the Covenant.”

  “It’s not something that people are meant to understand or think about. Any more than they’re meant to think about how their hamburgers are made.” He seemed about to grin, but didn’t. “With more than three hundred million people, it just wouldn’t be practical. How it works doesn’t matter to the average person, and it shouldn’t. That’s okay. What matters is that it does work, and that it takes care of its people. If it’s a deception, it’s a necessary deception.”

  Where had he heard this idea before? He thought of something else, then, something John Ramesh had said to him as he drove to the mouth of the plague pit. If eight million poor Africans go to sleep one night and don’t wake up the next morning, do you think anybody’s really going to care?

  “Covenant Division goes back years, doesn’t it?”

  “In name, it goes back to World War II. Originally, it was called the Covenant Project. It was designed, in a nutshell, to make sure we are never vulnerable again, and to look out for allies that are. Our nuclear program was part of Covenant originally.”

  “Was it Covenant Division that decided to invade Iraq? To take out Saddam?”

  “I can’t comment, Charlie.”

  “It failed to stop the attacks of 9/11. It didn’t do so well there.”

  He shrugged. “But it’s stopped much worse. There are bigger threats right now than al Qaeda. Much bigger. I
f someone develops a technology that trumps what the United States government has, then the whole idea can be jeopardized, can’t it? There are a lot of technologies and unorthodox means of warfare that are very problematic right now, Charlie, that the public doesn’t have a clue about. We have to respond.”

  Yes. He had heard the same words from Thomas Trent: If someone develops a technology more sophisticated than what the government has, and chooses not to sell it to the government, then the government can be undermined and rendered obsolete.

  That’s what Gardner was part of. That was Gardner’s war. An invisible war to prevent the United States from losing its dominance to shifting demographics. Or shifting technologies. He had launched what was in effect a hostile takeover of the Covenant Group. Of the U.S. government. His was a businessman’s war, the only kind he knew. Run by remote control. That could have taken out eight million people in a single night. But Landon Pine was different. Pine had been a real soldier. A Navy SEAL. He saw the flaws in Gardner’s war. The fatal mistakes.

  “The reason Covenant continues and the reason it works is because it’s larger than any individual,” Franklin went on, as if he was beginning to convince Charlie. “This country takes care of its people. But you can’t mess with it. You can’t challenge it. No individual is strong enough or important enough to do that.”

  Franklin sat up straighter. He placed his glasses in the pocket of his polo shirt. “Okay? It really has little to do with me, or any of the people who are involved with it right now. It’s written in the DNA of this country. But it’s something even our leaders don’t understand. Our visible leaders. That’s why they choose to become leaders. Our brand of democracy fosters imperfect deceptions. And a lot of gridlock, pettiness, and inefficiency. In truth, it doesn’t work. You can see what happens with Congress. It’s a system that by nature is ineffectual. As you once said, there’s weakness in numbers. And that’s okay. But the steering wheel of the country is something else, something that can’t be seen.”

  “And right now it’s focused on Africa, isn’t it?” Charlie said. “That’s the next battleground. The jihadists want it. Chinese industry wants it. And we’re having a hard time making inroads.”