by Robert Smith
“Go on.”
“We have Blue-On-Blue. I need a removal,” said Planner.
“Permanent or temporary.”
“I suggest a career change.”
“Understood. Name?”
“John Patrick O’Neill2223”
“Yes, I know him. FBI. I’ll arrange. Any other issue I can help you with?”
“I may need your help later on for a situation regarding the Rainbow Actors.”
“Oh? What do they want?”
“Assurances. I’m sorting it out tomorrow.”
“I presume you’re not talking about money.”
“No,” said Planner.
“Good. Let me know how it goes,” and the Lodge Master closed the call.
* * * *
7am. Planner yawned and leaned over and clicked off the alarm clock the instant it started to bleep. Planner looked at a picture of his wife and young daughter. It would be her birthday soon. He wondered if she would like flowers.
Coming out of shower, Planner received a call on his cell phone. Caller-id showed the caller was Bates.
“Where are they?”
Bates provided the information.
“Has the place been swept for bugs?”
Bates replied in the affirmative.
“I’ll meet you there.”
* * * *
At the Comfort Inn, Langley24, six well-dressed middle-eastern men, Mohammed Atta, Khalid Al-Midhar, Majed Moqed, Hani Hanjour, Salem Alhamzi and Nawaq Alhamzi were having an animated discussion amongst themselves. There was a knock on the door and the arguing stopped.
“Who is it?” asked one.
“You know who it is. Let us in!” said Bates sarcastically.
Majed smiled, “Yep. That’s the password.” And unbolted the door.
Khalid directly challenged Planner as he entered the room, “So who are you?”
“I’m… the Planner,” said Planner.
“I thought it was already planned,” said Khalid.
“I sort out the details. I make sure that there are no pants around our ankles when the shit hits. Ok?” Planner said, pausing for effect. “We’re doing our best to sort everything out for you. So what’s the problem? I know there’s an issue with communication and all… We need to be professional about this.”
“Communication is the least of our problems,” replied Khalid dismissively.
“So what is it? Is it the flight training?” Planner said, trying, but failing, to be sympathetic.
Hani Hanjour muttered a response, “They’ve heard!”
“Heard? No. What?” Planner said.
“Hani couldn’t persuade a flight instructor to go up with him,” said Majed25.
“When was this?” asked Planner, finally able to sound empathetic.
But it had no impact with Atta who stood up and angrily confronted Planner, “You know! Don’t pretend. You know what is going on. And we know what is going on. Our every move is being tracked. We’re being watched! We feel like we are dead men!”
Taking a step back, Planner said, “We know about the FBI agents following you. They’ve been stopped.”
As one, Kalid, Majed And Hani exclaimed, “FBI!?26”
“I didn’t know they were FBI,” said Hani wide-eyed.
“Well who did you think they were?” said Bates sarcastically.
“You Guys! CIA!” replied Hani more forcibly. “Why are they following us?”
“They’re not part of the team. The FBI got a tip-off from elsewhere. We’re handling it. We’ll clear it up,” assured Planner.
Atta was still less than happy, “We know how you operate,” he growled. “How you like to clean up. Professionally. We are here to make sure we are not part of the clean up.”
“What’s the problem? The money? Visas?” asked Planner trying his let-be-reasonable-about-this act.
“How do we know you won’t kill us?” asked Khalid suspiciously.
“Come on… you’re central to the plan,” Planner replied.
“Our deaths are central to the plan,” noted Khalid pointedly.
“You think we’d follow you and bump you off?” said Planner trying hard not to sound like a gangster.
“You’ve probably already planned it, Planner!” retorted Atta.
“No,” said Planner firmly. “The plan is as-agreed with you. You’ve selected your own new identities. We’ll give you access to the remainder of the money on the day of the event and you disappear. And then you keep off the radar. We won’t want to raise the story again. That makes no sense. We’re not going to draw attention to it.”
“Your people have been following us. They know our contacts,” reminded Khalid.
“They are FBI not CIA,” responded Bates.
“It’s all the same to us,” said Khalid.
“So what will be better for you? What do you want?” consoled Planner.
All the middle-eastern men glanced over at Khalid. “You just want our names,” Khalid said. “So you give us the money and we leave USA the night before the event.”
“But we need you to go through the airport on the day. Catch you on camera,” Bates protested mildly.
“You don’t need all of us to do that. You can fix it,” asserted Atta.
“What are you suggesting, just some of you?” Bates asked surprised.
“We have some… friends… that can turn up at the airport for us. They’ll pretend to be us. Hiijii has the details,” Majed interjected smoothly.
Planner took a second to process and then nods “Ok. Is that it? Money early and exit the USA the night before the event? With your friends turning up?”
“You’ll do it?” said Khalid with some surprise in his voice.
“Not a problem. Do you want to shake on it?” said Planner.
“Does that make some sort of difference? Just write it down!” said Atta flatly.2728
* * * *
Returning to Planner’s car in the motel car park, Bates mutters in wonder, “Pasties for our patsies. Whatever next? I presume you realise this will water down our back story considerably.”
“We just have to doctor a few security videos. I think we can manage that. We’ll have our people on the ground at the airport, right?”
“Right”
“Have you arranged for the FBI to be out the way?” asked Planner.
“Oh yes, all but our own men will be stuck in LA. On a Training course!29” said Bates with a chuckle.
“Yeah. Right!” laughed Planner.
Bates enters the car in the driver’s seat and uncovers a laptop computer. He examines the on-screen results of the frequency scanner that had been running while they had been inside; the system detected bugs: both voice recording and video recording devices. “Nothing to report,” he said to Planner when he entered the passenger seat. “The meeting was off the record.”
Planner nodded.
* * * *
That evening on the same country road as the day before, Planner stops his car, inserts a new sim-card into his cell phone and dials a number.
“It’s Robert. The Rainbow Actors are ready to perform,” stated Planner.
“Any problems?” asked the Lodge Master.
“They’ve been spooked a little. They needed some further space and we’ve some minor embellishments to the back-story to make. But we’re resolving quite a few inconsistencies in the storyline.”
“Ok. Good. We don’t want any more miscommunication. So the COG has decided to centralise all the operational planning teams.”
“Where to?”
“CIA offices in New York. The Salomon Brothers Building30.”
* * * *
Planner was tapping on the airline counter, barely concealing his frustration. He was unaccustomed at waiting in line at the first class check-in; this was most unusual. Indeed, that was what the staff member said when she put back the phone.
“Oh. This is unusual,” said the attractive female check-in agent, looking genuinel
y surprised.
“Oh?”
“We have a medical-emergency passenger on this flight. We’re rescheduling most of the first class passengers either onto other flights or business class. I’m terribly sorry, Sir. What would be your preference?” The check-in agent looked Planner in the eyes.
“When’s the next flight?” asked Planner.
“Not until this afternoon. Although we can check other airlines,” she said, immediately picking up a telephone.
Planner was quick to stop her, “No. Business class is fine.”
“Thank you, Sir. We’ll obviously refund the difference in price but you’ll retain your first class air miles, of course, Sir. Here’s your boarding pass. Boarding from Gate 10 in 30 minutes. Have a nice flight,” she said smiling broadly.
As he left, Planner could hear the check-in agent saying, “I’m sorry, Sir. Business Class is full.”
Planner walked through to “Departures”. He noted the lack of security checks for internal flights.
* * * *
Planner was in his seat in Business Class reading the Washington Post, concentrating deeply on a story about a collision between a US spy plane and a Chinese military aircraft. He was ignoring a heated conversation from across the isle from a businesswoman in her mid-thirties. She was gripping her mousey-blonde hair as she ranted into her cell phone.
“They can not do that! They can not do that! This is just ludicrous. Do they want them to wriggle out of this?” After a short pause she continued, “Every moment that we wait with the subpoena, just gives them more time to destroy evidence and rip off some more suckers.”
An officious air stewardess confronted the businesswoman, “I’m sorry, Madam, we’re closing the aircraft door now. You must switch off now.”
The businesswoman faked a smile at the stewardess, and concluded her call with gritted teeth, “I have to go. Kick the attorneys into action. Protest in the strongest terms. Ok? See you shortly.” She closed the call.
“You’ll need to switch it off completely, Madam,” the crewmember said firmly.
The businesswoman presses a button and showed off the device, “It’s off. See?”
The stewardess moved down the cabin catching Planner’s newspaper. Planner looked up and caught the businesswoman’s eye.
“Why do they have to do that? Would it have hurt so much to have another minute? Christ!” exclaimed the businesswoman to Planner. Then she held her mouth, not meaning to swear at a stranger.
Planner smiled weakly in return.
“I’m so sorry. I’m a bit wound up. I’m not usually like this.” The businesswoman smiled goofily at Planner.
“Well, it’s their job,” Planner replied reluctantly. “The cell phone could disrupt the aircraft… um… systems.”
“So they say. I know I left my phone on a flight the other week and I got a call while we were taking off. Didn’t seem to cause a problem. How can a fifty dollar phone bring down a $100 million airliner?” she joked.
Planner nodded slowly and folded his newspaper, “Indeed. I am sure they don’t cause a problem. It’s just the cost of proving that they don’t cause a problem.”
“I guess that must be it,” she said with a smile. Then her phone rang, she had obviously not turned it off. “Woopsy.” She said to Planner, then whispered into the phone, “Sorry. I can’t talk. I’ll be thrown off the plane!”
* * * *
Soon after take-off, the businesswoman leant towards Planner. The businesswoman held out her hand, “I’m Katherine, by the way.”
Planner said “Robert… Robert er… Smith.”
“Well how about that,” she said with a glow. “I’m a Smith too. Well, I wasn’t born a Smith; I married one. Now divorced. And you?”
Planner averted his eyes, “You really don’t want to know.”
“Separated?”
“My wife died in a car accident… last year.”
“That’s awful. I’m so sorry.”
“Yes, it was dreadful. It’s not a great subject for me, if you don’t mind,” Planner bit his lip when she looked away. In the immediate pause, he realised that he did want to talk; to talk to a real person, he rarely had the chance recently. He had not wanted to talk for a long time. So he said gently, “I don’t mind talking about your problems, though… a legal matter, I think I heard?”
Katherine looked back to Planner and smiled, “Lawyers! And accountants. They’re both driving me nuts. Do you know the difference between an accountant and a lawyer? At least, accountants know they’re boring.”
“So you’re not either?” ventured Planner.
“No, I’m an analyst. Analysts are also probably boring but I’d have to do some more research on that.”
“You’re really funny,” said Planner.
“A sense of humor is the only thing that keeps me going some days. Not that I let it show when I’m at work.”
“Seems intense.”
“It is at the moment. It’s pretty way-out.”
“Go on. I’m intrigued.”
“An extraordinary mess,” grimaced Katherine.
“Well… we have a couple of hours,” said Planner looking around the confining walls of the airliner.
“It would be good to talk about this stuff. It’s good-to-talk, as one of my British colleagues likes to say.”
“So you have a legal problem? With accountants involved too?” said Planner.
“A legal problem? Yeah,” said Katherine with a lopsided smile. “The problem being how do you get them to prosecute unabashed criminal activity?”
“With evidence?” said Planner hopefully.
“We have a ton of evidence. We suspected something was wrong with this company for a while. A single news article appeared asking how they made their numbers. They were just too good. Too smooth. So we looked and we couldn’t figure out how they made their numbers either. That’s the job I do.”
“As an analyst?”
“Right; as an analyst. Then we were given insight what was really going on; exposed by a whistleblower. We now have an avalanche of evidence. So we go to the lawyers and there’s this startled frozen reaction from the prosecutors.”
“Sounds typical to me,” said Planner.
“But it’s their job! Some of the lawyers involved in the case are displaying incompetence beyond comprehension.”
Planner nodded, “Then perhaps they’ve been asked to act incompetent. It’s one of the games.”
“Games?”
“The games people play… to distract from their true intention. Did they let this happen? Or have they made this happen? Both questions are irrelevant. The question to ask is what did they want to happen. Displaying incompetence is often just deflection or a delaying tactic.”
“Wow. That is it exactly. And you don’t even know what I’m talking about. What do you do again?” asked Katherine incredulously.
“I’m a… consultant. Aerospace industry. Radar… that sort of thing. And… er… who do you work for, er, Katherine?” said Planner nervously.
“Marsh McLennan in New York. I’ve been a market analyst there for eight years, doing this and that, portfolio management mostly,” she trotted off of company names and investment procedures and started to see Planner’s eyes glaze over, and so came back on topic firmly. “Anyway,” she said, “I see I don’t need to do any more research on whether market analysts are boring or not.”
Planner laughed.
“So then I stumbled across, what I consider to be, the crime of the century. But… yes, strangely, or perhaps not, now that I’m talking about it with you, without my spreadsheets and powerpoints… I’m struggling with my own conclusions.”
Planner shrugs, “So is this just your opinion?”
“Oh, no. We have a whole team working on this. My whole department has now bought into this.”
“So what’s the crime?”
“A whole, massive, criminal, enterprise,” Katherine said grappling with the words.
Planner did not have to say a word, just the look and smile to indicate that Katherine really ought to have known better.
Katherine wagged her finger, “No, it’s not the Mafia. Or at least, I don’t think it is. It’s hard to believe though. Just suppose… there was this company that produces nothing but just buys and sells stuff, say, for the sake of argument, er…”
“Insurance?” mused Planner.
“No. Electricity, say. And they get a monopoly contract to supply a whole state.”
“So potential for abuse from the start,” noted Planner.
“Yes. They get paid on the mark-up. So what they do is, they close local capacity, to cause power cuts31 and then buy-in expensive electricity from afar.”
“Where no doubt they get a rake off? So they’ll going to lose this contract eventually,” observes Planner.
“No. That’s just it. They don’t!” Katherine blurts. “They’ve won awards for most innovative company for six years because no-one hears the bad stuff. They pay journalists to say how wonderful they are.”
“Hmm, that sounds unethical. But is that illegal?”
“Misrepresentation? Oh yes, that’s illegal!” Katherine said trying to restrain any shrill in her voice. “But the worst part, to keep the share price going up, the company buys its own shares using a loan from a bank.”
“Stupid, sure, but not illegal?”
“It’s illegal the way they do it. The loans are treated as income and not debt. Accountants are no longer creative, they’re fraudsters. With Auditors told to look the other way.”
“Ok. That’s illegal,” said Planner pursing his lips.
“And with the loans, shares and rip-off prices, there’s lots of cash being generated… That is used to buy-off politicians so that more crappy deals are made across the country. And the pile of shit just gets bigger and bigger until…” and then Katherine stops and looks into the distance.
“Until what?”
Katherine shakes her head, “I don’t know!”
“You don’t?”
“No. I keep trying to imagine all the ramifications and I can’t. The size of the hole is billions of dollars. I imagine the four horseman of the apocalypse in my sleep,” she says dramatically.
“Well, I’m sure it won’t come to that,” Planner said reassuringly. “It’ll be a scandal and forgotten about in six months.” Planner then bit his lip and asked the crucial question that every intelligence analyst knows is the keystone to credibility, “How do you know all this?”