The Planner

by Robert Smith

  Turq looked around and sprung her manicured fingers together clearly irritated, “It’s against protocol to talk about this outside the office.”

  Planner gave a wry smile.

  Turq huffed then preceded to explain, “Well, we have three classes of, er… legends64 for both passenger and crew. First, are the virtual. These are new identities, created from our covert operations department so they will have the right backgrounds, tags and history. The department creates these identities at consistent rate for CIA field operatives. It’s a slow process and we do not want to alert them of our demand so it has remained slow. Fortunately they have a backlog of unused identities and we have grabbed that pile. Secondly, we have er… staff wishing to transfer into WITSEC. There is only limited scope to expand the numbers going into that program; it is already max-ed out. Thirdly we have innocents, people that will be caught up in events. We’re proposing to harvest victims…” Turq looked around to make sure no-one could hear, “…from road traffic accidents. Apparently this method has been used before, I’m not familiar, as yet, on the hand-over process between ambulance crew and airport staff. So in answer to your question; the media need to be diverted from the virtual victims, the relatives need to be managed for the WITSEC victims. But the key to Stage C, will be the innocents; they will be the main method of distraction. They will provide the cover that the other identities will effectively hide behind.”

  Planner cleared his throat, “So that was plan? Take road traffic victims?”

  Turq said, “Sure. Have our own ambulance and clean up crew to pick up the innocents from the roadside and transport them to the airport. I’ll be there to load them into the aircraft. Hack their email accounts and send a note to friends and family: hey we’ve decided to go off on vacation. Or use voice actors to leave messages. Load the bodies into the drones or take DNA samples and dispose rest as biohazard.”

  “This’ll all be done the day or two before the Big Event?” asked Planner.

  “Yes,” said Turq, transfixing Planner with one of her hypnotic stares.

  “I think we need a better plan,” said Planner tartly.

  * * * *

  Planner returned to his hotel room. As soon as he entered, he dropped his travel bag on his bed and put his brief case on the desk. He unlocked his case and extracted his pack of sim cards. He inserted a new sim-card into his cell phone and dialled a number.

  “It’s Robert. The material is secured. It will be with us in a few weeks.”

  “Excellent,” said the Lodge Master.

  Planner explained the bare bones of the meeting they had earlier in the day.

  “You need to make an association between the Rainbow Actors and the material,” said the Lodge Master. “Make sure that a couple of them have a minor infection and have it treated; this will build the evidence trail.”

  “Right,” said planner.

  There was obviously something in Planner’s tone of voice because the Lodge Master said, “You seem tense, Robert. Is everything all right with you?”

  After a minor hesitation, Planner said, “I’m worried about uncoordinated aspects of the plan. They er… may affect the overall storyline and objectives.”

  “I’m not following you, Robert,” said the old man.

  “I’m talking about inconsistencies in our story and Loose Ends, Sir.”

  “Loose ends?”

  “Yes,” said Planner.

  “Robert, I admire you dedication and attention to detail,” said the Lodge Master. “But really inconsistencies are not a problem. And will not be a problem. To the people in the know it will be our signature. Take, for example, JFK’s magic bullet65 in Dallas. It was cogently explained by one our experts and now stand outs like a trophy on our wall. The public are content with the story provided by the politicians and the media, even as the experts argue over details.”

  “I know we have our gatekeepers and I worry needlessly,” said Planner.

  “No, continue to worry about loose ends, Robert,” encouraged the Lodge Master. “Do the best you can but realise we will manage the inconsistencies and no blame will be attached to anybody. We do have the people to describe snow as black66, and be believed.”

  “Thanks for the pep-talk, Most Worshipful Master.”

  “Speak to you soon, no doubt,” replied the old man.

  Planner hung up, removed the sim-card and re-inserted the original sim-card. Planner destroyed the singlely-used sim-card and threw the remains away.

  Then the cell phone rang. Planner looked at it surprised.

  “Hello?” said Planner cautiously.

  “It’s Katherine,” came the reply

  “Hiiii!” said Planner with relief.

  “You didn’t call me today!” mocked Katherine as a joke.

  “Oh. Sorry. I…” Planner said, not too sure whether it was a joke or not.

  “Just kidding,” she assured. “I know you’re busy. Just phoning to say that I can’t make it tonight.”

  “Oh,” said Planner disappointed. He looked at his watch; it was 8pm.

  “SEC seem to be getting into gear. We have a pre-trial hearing in October. We’re compiling the best evidence for the judicial review. So, we’re calling in pizza and working late tonight.”

  “Yeah, pizza normally sorts these things out. Well, perhaps another time.”

  “Definitely,” she said.

  “But that’s great news, isn’t it? You’re going to get the jerks?”

  “It looks that way. But you know what I heard today? Enron Execs are known as the Smartest Guys in the Room! That made me feel ill. Daylight robbery being described as smart. Just because they don’t have a mask and a gun in their hand…”

  “Hiding in plan sight,” observed Planner. “It’s a common method of camouflage. It happens all the time.”

  “It does?”

  “Sure. Tell me, Katherine, can I try a little thought experiment?”

  “Are you going to prove your point?”

  “Probably not,” said Planner, thinking it probably was not going to be a good idea.

  “Sure. Go on.”

  “So JFK. Did Oswald shoot JFK? Was he the Lone Gunman?”

  “Hmm, I’m not too sure what you are getting at, but yes. I saw the NBC special on it. Yeah, he was,” she said.

  “So have you heard of Oswald’s magic bullet?”

  Katherine started laughing, “No. Wow, Robert, I didn’t know you were into conspiracy theories?”

  “Ok. End of experiment,” he said.

  “I hope it worked! Sorry I’ve got to go. You can explain it to me another time, it sounds complicated. Speak to you tomorrow, I hope.”

  “Ok,” he said, feeling foolish. “I look forward to it. Bye.”

  * * * *

  This was to be a busy day: Bates had lined up visits to three operations: Carrot, Hollywood and Las Vegas. Fortunately they were all in the same building.

  He arranged to meet the Carrot representatives, Melvin and Jenny, in a small office within WTC7 at 8.00am alone since Bates had already met the Carrot team and felt he was more gainfully employed setting up the other two meetings of the day.

  Melvin, mid-fifties, black suit, and Jenny, ginger-haired, late-thirties, smart scarlet business suit, made an excellent impression, as if they were selling a billion dollar business deal rather than a billion dollar disaster. After efficient introductions, and fifteen minutes of discussion, Melvin stood, pen in hand, by a matrix of numbers on a whiteboard.

  Planner recapped what he just heard, “So you’re telling me that BE2 will be self financing. From untraceable bond sales, sale of gold and silver, and from the stock market67?”

  “Partly,” Carrot smiled. “The current funding is all through DoD. That is a sunk cost. The bond sales, also a sunk cost, we just need to make them untraceable for political reasons. No, the bonus values are from stock trading and precious metal sales. You’ll need to talk to Operation Vegas about insurance recovery. That’s exclud
ed from Carrot calculations. That’s an important boundary line between the two operations,” said Melvin getting into increasing levels of digression, before returning to his main point. “No what I was pointing out was that all Phase C operations will be financed from these bonus funds. Phase A and B will be covered by DoD budgets…”

  “But basically,” interrupted Planner again. “It will build up a huge cash fund to finance the aftermath.”

  “Yes. Basically,” smiled Melvin with a fake smile.

  “Who will administer the fund?” said Planner, making some notes in his filofax.

  “It will continue to be administered from this unit,” said Melvin matter-of-factly. “But Operation Carrot is not solely a gravy train for internal participants. There are not just incentives…”

  “…there is also some stick”, interrupted Jenny smoothly. She exhibited a broad red-lipped smile with eerily white teeth.

  “Stick?” asked Planner.

  “Disincentives,” she replied with edge. “For participants both internal and external, we have a treatment plan to modify unsupportive behaviour.”

  “I’m familiar with Psychological Operations68, media campaigns aimed at communities, but I haven’t seen it applied down to an individual level,” said Planner. “So how does that work?”

  “Computers systems enable us this fine control,” smirked Jenny. She stood and went to the whiteboard as if to give a lecture. Melvin cleaned off his figures and sat down. “I presume you have come across CRM? Customer Relationship Management software?”

  “Sorry, no,” said Planner.

  “I guess not your speciality,” she said, twisting on her hips in a rocking motion. “It is standard off-the-shelf software in the business world, used to provide better customer service, ha-ha,” she explained with little mirth, but obvious enjoyment. “CRM is used to figure out whether a company’s advertising and marketing is working and sales are being generated. It was able to spot trends and types of people: drive customer demand with targeted marketing messages and identify high-value customers… and make them loyal. Oh what qualities,” she sighed. “Well it wasn’t long before these tools were being used in other areas. They were just what were required for managing offenders on probation! CRM became Criminal Relationship Management systems. And so it was soon being used by probation agencies. And then by prisons for managing inmates as part of their panopticon…”

  “And now to determine the success of covert operations?” concluded Planner.

  “Indeed. We could call it a Covert-agent Relationship Management system. After all, they are high value and we want them loyal. We can measure whether our marketing campaign has worked. Rather, whether our indoctrination has worked; you can thank Edward Bernays for the overlap between marketing and propaganda69.” She laughed to herself again before continuing. “So we can start with a standard CRM product; enact a generic or even specific management plan; specific to individuals. We do actually called them treatment plans,” she said and paused to look for a reaction from Planner.

  “How does it work?” continued Jenny rhetorically since Planner was silent and merely twirling his pen, “Say we have a journalist that, for example, is challenging the official story of the Event… First he is guided by a generic treatment plan, a series of gentle reminders pointing out the error of his ways perhaps, how it goes against advertising sponsors, editorial guidelines and so on which escalates upwards.” She wrote “Reporter” on the whiteboard and a zigzag to represent a staircase. She continued, “So for journalists, if soft measures like the authority of their bosses doesn’t work, then the subject goes onto hard-measures: maybe a career change…” She then drew two further zigzag staircases and underneath wrote “Spy” and “Politic”. “There is an escalation process, for each profession.” For the staircase marked “Politic” she removed some of the steps. She said with conviction, “We find simple bribery works best for politicians, but other people are less predictable, so we escalate up the steps, with job loss, marriage, health… and so on, until we achieve the desired outcome.”

  “Up to the maximum… sanction,” asked Planner carefully.

  “There’s a risk assessment process. The greater the risk, the more persuasion will be applied. But, yes, up to the maximum sanction. The good news being if the participant changes his, or her, ways, they’ll immediately be rewarded. This works like a pavlovian reaction, 99 % of the time…”

  “I thought it only worked for dogs,” sighed Planner. “Ah well, we live and learn. And the one percent?”

  Jenny looked at Planner directly. “Actually it is much, much less than one percent. But yes, the exceptions…” she grimaced and acted out a chop across the neck.

  * * * *

  Planner returned to the Rainbow office and went to Bates’ cubicle in the open plan section of the office.

  “How did that go?” asked Bates, looking up from his laptop.

  “Disconcerting,” replied Planner.

  “Why’s that?”

  “More cancer to fight cancer,” said Planner.

  They hushed as workmen walked past, carrying a ladder and tools.

  “We should talk over lunch,” said Bates. “We have Operation Hollywood to visit and then the rest of the afternoon with Las Vegas team.”

  Chapter Eight: Hollywood

  In the Hollywood office Planner and Bates shook hands with a spiky blonde haired thirty-something man wearing large glasses. On the wall was a large poster for the “Pearl Harbor” movie.

  “Hi, I’m Planner.”

  “Bates.”

  “I’m Nigel. Hi. Thanks. Do sit down,” said Nigel nicely in a British accent.

  “Hopefully we won’t take up too much of your time,” said Planner.

  “Thanks. All the noise in the office stops us from recording master tapes so we are just rehearsing at the moment. I really am a scriptwriter. Just finished on Pearl Harbour… Ben Affleck…” said Nigel, pointing to the poster.

  “Right. Good for you,” said Planner slightly dismissively. “Can you take me back to the original objectives of this mission?”

  “Well,” smiled Nigel. “In general, the team here work with some of the best writers in Hollywood to provide narrative and context to the agency’s staged events.”

  Planner raised his eyebrows.

  “So like TV news reports?” asked Bates.

  “No, they can be stilted or ad-libbed. No, our services are used for naturalistic dialogue, such as the demands and threats from the hijackers.”

  “Everyone sit down. We are returning back to the airport,” suggested Bates, in a parody of a Middle-eastern accent.

  “Yes, just like that,” said Nigel with a fake smile.

  “So where are you with your work?” asked Planner.

  “Our task expanded a couple of months ago. I presume you know about the problems with the fourth target? The Capitol Building? There were problems with that,” Nigel signalled upwards, “from above.”

  “Oh?” Planner said returning the fake smile.

  “Yes. We’re the replacement operation for the forth target.”

  Bates narrowed his eyes.

  “Yeah…” Nigel realised he was not receiving good vibrations from his visitors. He perked up hoping to improve rapport. “A big mix up, I understand. I was at this screening when a good friend of mine…”

  Planner interrupted smoothly, “Can you tell us why there were problems?”

  Nigel maintained his broad fake smile, “Problems with the fourth target? Three reasons really. There was an expectation that the fourth target was going to be the Capitol Building. Apparently the-powers-that-be wanted to pass a bill after the Big Event? While the President could have passed the bill as an edict, it was felt there could be push-back. It could be seen as all dictatorial,” said Nigel with air-quotes. “You know, so best let congress and the senate do it. It would seem normal that way.”

  “And the other reasons?” said Planner.

  “The gen
erals,” said Nigel with a salute. “The air force generals… didn’t like Washington being seen as undefended against two civilian aircraft. Even one makes them look pretty bad.”

  “Hmm. Right. Third reason?”

  “Technical. The capitol building is quite a small target, you need to weave around the Washington monument and so on, so they needed to fix extra radar…”

  Planner interrupted, “Yes, I know about this. You need high fidelity radar coverage and military mode GPS to reliably hit the target. It’s not so easy in Washington to accommodate the extra kit.”

  “Is that what you did in New York?” Bates asked Planner as an aside.

  “Yes. The technical stuff is my forte,” said Planner.

  “It’s not mine,” volunteered Nigel with a laugh. “So as I was saying, I was brought in a few months ago to bring out a… narrative. The seeds of hope to rise from the despair…”

  “Is this one of the psychologist’s ideas?” said Bates sardonically.

  Nigel points to himself, “Er, no. It was mine actually. I was thinking: how would the Big Event be made into a movie? We needed drama. So while I was attending the rushes of the Pearl Harbour movie… I was thinking: how do I make a movie from this? What thread would I take? And obviously the strongest dramatic theme is the hijacking… and what would happen if, on one of aircraft, the last one,” Nigel made some fists, “the passengers fight back!”

  “Sounds a bit fanciful. I understand the Air Force wanted to take credit for stopping the fourth plane,” Planner said.

  Bates turned to Planner in surprise. “Where did you hear that?”

  “That’s unofficial,” smiled Planner. Focusing back to Nigel, “So, the plane crashes en route to Washington. Is there anything else I need to know?”

  “There’s a lot of plot details,” Nigel said but his voice trailed off realising that he was not impressing either Planner or Bates.

  “So is this team of Hollywood writers all indoctrinated?” asked Planner.

  “No,” said Nigel carefully. “No, they basically act as a think tank and we just take some of their ideas away. But they do benefit. They often go off and write something akin to the agency’s own plot scenario which often makes it to the screen70. There is quite a bit of quid-pro-quo.”