by Eric Bernt
Cornell was certainly deserving of financial aid. He was a straight-A student with nearly perfect SATs who had been elected to represent New Jersey at Boys Nation, which Bill Clinton, among other political notables, had also attended while still in high school. Cornell’s involvement in politics at the national level made his student-body presidency seem trivial by comparison, but like any good politician, he made his fellow students at Parsippany Hills High School feel they were all that mattered to him.
As early as the eighth grade, Cornell knew he wanted to study political science at Georgetown. The kid didn’t lack for ambition. His mother dutifully explained how competitive it was to get into such a prestigious college. Her son answered matter-of-factly that he would just work harder than everyone else. She promised him that if he did indeed get accepted, she would somehow find a way to pay for it.
But certain promises are harder to keep than others. Cornell kept up his end of the bargain. The boy was a model citizen and one she was damn proud of. Any mother would be. Disappointing him would kill her. But affording an elite education as a single parent earning $68,000 a year seemed practically impossible. At that time, tuition at Georgetown was $36,140. Room and board were $11,478. There was no way she could make it work without help.
There was all kinds of scholarship money out there, but, for some reason, Cornell wasn’t qualifying for any of it. Apparently, the majority of the money was intended for those who earned less than thirty thousand a year. Those who earned above sixty were just plain out of luck. It almost seemed like she was being penalized for doing just well enough. The middle class was getting squeezed out of leadership-caliber educations, and Cornell was due to be the next victim.
Then the scholarship invitation from the Commonwealth Equal Opportunity Trust arrived. This was his best and last chance to afford the education he’d been dreaming of since middle school. Cornell wore his only suit, and did all he could to look his very best at the interview.
Gloria wished her son luck and squeezed him tight as he was ushered into a room by two well-dressed women. Gloria sat quietly in the waiting room, intending to busy herself with the array of magazines she had brought, when a man sat down next to her.
It was Bob Stenson, but he did not introduce himself to her. Gloria would never learn his name. “Hello.” His voice was pleasant and unassuming.
“Why, hello.” Gloria tried to be as charming as she could be. For all she knew, this conversation might have some impact on their decision. Little did she know how absolutely right she was.
Stenson removed a cellular phone from the breast pocket of his suit coat and held it in front of him. “May I ask if you’ve ever sent a text message from one of these things?” After all, this was 2005. The first iPhone wouldn’t come out until 2007.
She glanced at the phone, which looked like so many others. “Why, no, I haven’t, but my son has many times. Today, in fact.”
The man chuckled. “Of course he has.” He then turned to face her more directly. “Ms. Pruitt, what if I told you there was a way you could guarantee your son will receive our scholarship?”
Gloria looked at him inquisitively, certain that he would not be suggesting anything sexual to a woman of her age and abundant figure. “What would I have to do?”
“Come work for us.”
“Where would that be, exactly?”
“The physical location will vary from time to time, depending on which of our clients is in need of nursing care, but we would never ask you to commute more than a fifty-mile radius from your place of residence.”
It made Gloria uncomfortable that these people knew where she lived. It also made her wonder what else they knew about her. “I hate to ask this, but why me?”
“We’re what people consider old school. We require complete trust. And absolute confidentiality. While we will arrange your placements with our clients, you may not reveal your association with us—to them, or anyone else. Any breach of discretion on your part will result in immediate termination, both of your employment and Cornell’s scholarship.”
She looked Stenson directly in the eyes. “I would never betray your trust.”
“We wouldn’t be having this conversation if we thought you would.” He handed her a plain manila folder that contained a copy of every performance-related issue from her employment records. “Before we have these items expunged, we need to know if there is anything else we should be aware of.”
Flipping through the documents, her hands trembled. Gloria had trouble speaking. “These records are supposed to be confidential.”
Stenson studied her without expression. Within seconds, he would know how well he’d selected.
She turned back to the items from her file. “You know, most of these weren’t my fault.”
“We do know.” He said it like it should have been obvious.
While concerned, Gloria would later remember that she was also somewhat excited. “You can really have my record cleaned?”
He nodded without blinking. “As long as we know everything.”
She flipped through the documents once more, then handed them back. “This is all of it.” She would never learn that this man and his associates were the reason Cornell had not received any offers from the many scholarships he had applied for. Unbeknownst to Gloria, Cornell’s applications had all been withdrawn. The rejection letters she’d received certainly seemed legitimate. And what reason could she have possibly had to think that someone was forging the documents, forcing her to desperately need the one and only scholarship still available to her son?
She nodded. “So while I will technically be working for other people, I will actually be working for you.”
“In the strictest of confidence.” He glanced around the offices, which would be broken down later that day. Within twenty-four hours, there would be no sign he or his associates were ever there. Commonwealth Equal Opportunity Trust did not appear on the short-term lease, or on any other legal document or registry anywhere. For all intents and purposes, it did not exist.
“How will this work?”
He handed her the phone. He explained that their communication would primarily be via text. They would notify her when and where she was to fill a new placement. She would go through the application process like every other potential hire, only with the knowledge that she alone had a perfect record. Her placement would be guaranteed. Her first position would be in the home of retired New York governor Terence Townsend, who had recently suffered a traumatic brain injury. The elder Townsend was also the father of New York City congressman and tabloid favorite Henry Townsend.
At the conclusion of each shift, Gloria was to report the names of any visitors the retired governor received. If there were none, her text message was to read: NONE. All messages were to be kept as brief as possible. She was never to use the phone for any other purpose, even in a life-threatening emergency. She was not to let anyone know of the phone’s existence, any message she ever transmitted on it, or the true nature of her son’s scholarship. Any deviation from these instructions would result in the immediate termination of his scholarship and her employment.
Of course, the true repercussions would be far more serious, but those were not discussed. For the next three years, Gloria performed her duties in the Townsend residence exactly as instructed. In fact, she was utterly vigilant. But little of interest occurred during that time, leading Stenson to believe that Gloria’s talents might be better utilized elsewhere. It wasn’t long after that Bob Stenson learned of Harmony House, and the echo box in particular. With his help, she sailed through the application process, even with the overly zealous background check performed by Fenton’s security team. The other job applicants had all failed the test. Since 2008, Gloria had been dutifully reporting on the progress, or lack thereof, of Edward Parks’s echo box.
The longer Gloria was in their employ, the more Bob Stenson and his American Heritage Foundation associates were convinced the real value of this
particular hire might not be in the pipe dream of the echo box, but in the fine young man Cornell Pruitt was turning out to be. After Georgetown, they paid for him to attend Yale Law School. Then facilitated his hiring at the New York District Attorney’s Office. They were now certain he was capable of becoming someone of political import. A senator in the making, for sure. Possibly even more.
All they needed to decide was what they wanted him to be.
CHAPTER 23
American Heritage Foundation, Alexandria, Virginia, May 23, 7:18 p.m.
Gloria’s text message arrived at the American Heritage Foundation within seconds via one of its many sophisticated satellite antennae well hidden atop its roof. There wasn’t another private-sector company in the world with any of this technology. Even the FBI didn’t have some of this stuff. By the time they did acquire it, the AHF would most certainly have already installed the next generation of systems, if not the one after that.
The building itself was another story. The structure was a drab, two-story cinder-block box in an office park on the outskirts of Alexandria, Virginia, whose other tenants included a web-design firm, a fledgling toy manufacturer, and a financial-consulting group. None of them would ever suspect one of the most influential political entities in the world was housed next door. Which was precisely the idea.
The notion of the American Heritage Foundation had been born shortly after the Kennedy assassination and cemented during Watergate. American politics was out of control. The system had run amok. The Great American Experiment of democracy was on the verge of collapsing under its own weight, and somebody had to do something.
Even if it meant undermining the entire system.
That was when seven like-minded midlevel officers from several of the government’s intelligence agencies decided the only way to effectively play the game was off the field. Completely. No official ties. No official funding. No official anything.
While the Church and Pike Committees were busy conducting their official investigations into the CIA and the other intelligence agencies in 1975, these men quietly left their government positions and opened the doors to the American Heritage Foundation. Their seed money was entirely private and under no one else’s scrutiny. The funds were received on a handshake for future consideration.
Each of their wealthy patrons would go on to state that this investment was the single smartest thing they had ever done with their money. They all grew even more rich as strategically selected policies and rulings were granted in their favor, courtesy of the American Heritage Foundation’s influence and reach. Even then, there were few politicians, judges, or intelligence or law-enforcement personnel they couldn’t get to.
The financial resources of the Foundation grew impressively. After thirty-six years of remarkable growth, the Foundation’s endowment hovered around the $5.2 billion mark. That was enough money to do anything they thought was necessary, whenever they wanted.
It was enough to start a war.
The AHF initially had only nine full-time employees. They were a tight-knit group who were evangelical in their zeal. They believed in what they were doing. They were the ones keeping America on track, and there wasn’t anything they wouldn’t do to ensure it stayed that way.
Over the years, their employee numbers had grown to twenty-seven—still a small group, in part because their standards were so rigorous and the application process so involved that few worthy candidates ever stayed the course long enough for serious consideration.
You can find twenty-six other people you could trust with your life. You cannot find two hundred and twenty-six. At least, not in the civilian world.
The other reason they had been able to maintain such a small payroll was the ever-increasing efficiency of technology. One man with $10,000 of technology today could do what one hundred men with $50 million of equipment back in 1975 often couldn’t. What used to require an army now simply required the right person, the right technology, and the financial resources to hire whatever independent contractors were necessary to execute any particular job.
The American Heritage Foundation had all three.
They had used hundreds of independent contractors over the years for a variety of tasks, but even this group was kept to a bare minimum to ensure that the Foundation’s very existence remained off the grid.
If you controlled the grid, it was possible to keep yourself off it.
In its entire forty-two-year existence, no one had ever left the American Heritage Foundation except to retire or die. This was not because of the compensation, which was adequate but nothing great. And it wasn’t because of the benefits package or perks or any of the other usual measures of what makes one job more desirable than another. Everyone who worked in this office thought they had the greatest job in the world because it was their mission. They effected real change in the real world on a regular basis, and no one outside them had a clue.
They were the puppet masters.
Elected officials, political appointees, committees, cabinets, intelligence directors, and everyone else who made Washington their personal playground did so for only limited periods of time. What could a person, even a really talented one, truly accomplish in renewable four-year chunks of time? The answer was very little, at least according to American Heritage doctrine. And most politicians were not very talented. The vast majority of them were little more than children who needed guidance and direction, not unlike movie stars. Give them a part to play, and if they play it well, reward them. But if they don’t, get rid of them.
Ronald Reagan was their shining example; God rest his soul.
The current director of the American Heritage Foundation, Bob Stenson, revered Reagan almost as much as his predecessor and mentor had. Lawrence Walters, one of the original seven founders, had a knack for spotting talent before anyone else. He was one of the first to suggest to the modestly talented actor that he would make a great politician. Walters also recognized the talent in Stenson when he was still only a midlevel CIA agent. Walters handpicked him. Recruited him. Trained him. And gradually brought him up through the Foundation’s ranks, over nineteen years, to the point where he inherited the mantle in 2005 when Alzheimer’s forced the last of the founders to step aside.
If kings could select their princes instead of simply bearing them, it would be done like that.
As in all father-son relationships, things weren’t always smooth between Walters and Stenson. Tensions arose when opinions differed, such as in the case of Henry Townsend. Stenson had urged Walters as early as 2002 to end their relationship with the derelict representative from New York. But Walters insisted that the younger Townsend’s proclivities could be useful tools to keep him in line. Over time, however, it became apparent that the man-boy congressman simply couldn’t control his adolescent urges.
When the old man finally decided to retire, due to increasingly poor health, he privately admitted that he should have done something about the derelict senator long ago. Walters had allowed his history with and affection for the embarrassment’s father to cloud his judgment. Stenson stated with absolute candor that he was not about to put another jackass in the White House. One idiot son was enough for a generation. With that, Walters left his office for the last time, confident that the American Heritage Foundation was in good hands.
Stenson sat behind his Steelcase tanker desk, reviewing the day’s communications to make sure there wasn’t anything he had missed. He was reading messages on his encrypted device, which matched the ones carried by Corbin Davis and Gloria Pruitt, as well as dozens of others. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Everyone who was supposed to check in had done so. It was just another day at the office. Stenson called his wife, Millie, to let her know he would be leaving soon. She was always so happy when he came home at a reasonable hour. Dinner would be on the table. His favorite, pork loin.
CHAPTER 24
Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, May 24, 9:07 a.m.
Professo
r Jacob Hendrix entered his office to find that a dozen envelopes and messages had been slipped under the door. Some were flyers about student productions. The rest was administrative junk from the dean’s office or invitations from other faculty members. He plopped all of it on his desk without looking at it and turned to his computer. He logged in and pulled up Wikipedia, where he typed a search for acoustic archeology.
The moment Jacob hit “Enter,” an alert triggered on one of the many screens in the basement office of Michael Barnes. Certain keywords immediately triggered an alert if typed at one of the many IP addresses he was tracking. With a few keystrokes, Barnes could now see exactly what was on Jacob’s computer screen. Barnes read the Wikipedia entry right along with Jacob, about the “garden variety” of acoustic archeology that had been featured in several investigative shows. The listing included the mention of “the future possibility of being able to re-create any type of sound wave,” but that “such technology remains in the realm of science fiction.”
Barnes had been doing this kind of work long enough that he didn’t believe much in chance. Almost nothing happened purely out of coincidence. Still, it was a possibility here. The search could be nothing more than the result of an innocent conversation with Skylar.
That possibility was removed the moment Jacob typed Edward Parks. There was no Wikipedia entry for the name. A Google search for it brought up three entries: an attorney who was a partner at the DC law firm of Hogan Lovells; a twenty-four-year-old baritone who was currently studying at the Yale School of Music; and an orthopedic surgeon in Denver.
There was nothing about Eddie, and there never would be. The same was true of the search for echo box. There would never be any information available about the device of Eddie’s creation. There was, however, an abundance of data regarding another device with the same name. This echo box was a device used to check the output power and spectrum of a radar transmitter. Anyone who was curious could learn all they wanted about that particular machine.