The Planner

by Robert Smith

  “Vested interests. Like what?”

  “Like… just like what you’ve seen with Enron,” said Planner uncertainly.

  “So, you think… maybe Big Oil is behind it?”

  “Could be. I’ve no way of telling,” sighed Planner.

  “And you’ve only just had this realisation?” she asked.

  “I guess I’ve suppressed any suspicion until this recent colleague’s death. It flooded out, I kind of collapsed with the epiphany, and then, an hour later, I was effectively given a promotion… or at least a huge chunk of responsibility. But in the meantime, my confidence in my work, has vaporised.”

  “Really? Oh no.”

  “It felt… very bizarre. Sorry, I’m feeling like a fool,” he confessed.

  “You say you’ve lost confidence? Has your boss found out?” she said.

  Planner said, looking at the ground, “It’s not quite like that. There’s an unwritten pact between us. I do bad things, Katherine.”

  “And you might lose your job?” she said, confused.

  Still looking at the ground, he said, “No, I do bad things for my job. And they promote me for it. It’s kind of sick. I can justify my past actions; making omelettes by breaking eggs… Loyalty to colleagues; to a cause; my family. But my job has never been pretty.”

  Katherine gulped.

  “But the needs of many outweigh the needs of the few,” sighed Planner.

  Katherine took this opportunity to break the gloom, “That’s from Star Trek, right?”

  Planner smirked back at her, “Now I know I am cracking up,” he said grimly.

  They made eye contact again and they both fell silent and looked at each other for a long couple of seconds. Katherine broke the spell and asked a more serious question, “You’re saying the end justifies the means, perhaps?”

  Planner relaxed a little more, “Yes, I think the real philosophy is supposed to be the greatest good to the greatest number of people. But I’m thinking… there comes a point when the immoral becomes evil and actually poisons the well. So actually, the end doesn’t justify the means. And I’m used to being ruthless about such matters. Like you wouldn’t believe. Like a pilot sent out to bomb the enemy and finding out you’ve bombed refugees. I’ve done similar bad things and justified it for the sake of the mission or blamed it on war. But I hadn’t thought through the bigger picture.”

  “I thought you thought big,” she said.

  “I had big thoughts for our country. But not for humanity.”

  “Whoa,” said Katherine inadequately. It was a difficult to know how to respond to such a statement. After a pause, she said meekly, “So… criminal things?”

  “Government sanctioned but pretty immoral. Is it a crime if it is authorised by the President?” said Planner.

  “This is pretty heavy stuff, Robert,” she stammered, as tears welled up in her eyes. “Are you sure you should be telling me this? Just how bad is bad in your books?”

  Planner looked down again, “I understand that you may not want to see or speak to me again. That would be very rational of you.”

  “Can you resign? This isn’t like the Mafia, right?” she said.

  “No, but it feels like it at times. They have a pretty binding contract. I probably could resign. I’d have to give three months notice though and have a good reason to go. And the non-disclosure agreements: more than you’d believe. But I still wouldn’t be able to get out of my current job.”

  “Then at least try to resign. Especially, if you’re worried about… er… Death Squads.”

  Planner looked at her again, “Right. You got that then?”

  “That is what your implying, right?” she said with tears.

  “Well, yes.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “You can read about them in the newspapers?” he said.

  “Really?”

  “And on the internet.”

  “So conspiracy theories?” she said with a trace of venom and drying her eyes.

  “Backed by official documentation. I just never imagined them so close to home. My wife, for instance? I’m incredulous about it, so I can hardly imagine what you must be thinking.”

  “Could they be after you?”

  “Considering what I am doing at the moment, no. But if my paranoia is correct and she was targeted then they must have been intercepting our calls. Her calls, at least,” said Planner.

  “And they would have found out what you did?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe not. I don’t do the sort of job where the work I bring home is scattered about. Or talked about on open lines.”

  “So you are doing something bad? For them?” she said.

  “I really can’t say anything. It started off just as an extension of my normal… job. Doing something good for my country,” said Planner, struggling with his inner dilemmas.

  “It’s Black Ops, isn’t it? I don’t know what that means exactly but its clandestine stuff,” she said.

  “We’re getting into twenty questions here. It’s not fair on either of us to discuss this. This isn’t supposed to be about me. It’s not good subject to discuss. I’m worried about you. And Enron.”

  “Do you realise just how crazy this all sounds?”

  “I know. I know. At least, I think I do. Crazy or not… And even if we never speak again, I really came here just to ask one small, albeit, strange favour from you?” said Planner, back in control of his emotions.

  “Is this going to be sexual?” she said in a nasal voice, holding a handkerchief to her nose.

  Planner laughed, “No.”

  Katherine pocketed her handkerchief and looked back attentive but unsmiling.

  Planner inhaled and said, “Could you just do this one thing and honestly, if you don’t want to see or speak to me again then I perfectly understand. Can you make sure that you don’t go into the office unless your CEO is there?”

  Katherine was surprised. “But the CEO isn’t my boss,” she said.

  “It doesn’t matter. It has to be the CEO,” said Planner.

  “Can you tell me why?”

  “No, I can’t do that,” he said trapped by his oath of secrecy and fear of not being believed. “Just check your CEO’s calendar and confirm that he’ll be in the office. Make any excuse if he’s not. Just for the next month.”

  “Ok. I think we have now established that you are cracking up,” she joked. “You seriously can’t tell me what this is about. How do you know all this?”

  “As you said, it is a small community in Wall Street. Your work may have kicked up quite a bit of a storm.”

  “My work?” exclaimed Katherine.

  “And it is soon going to be thrown into a whirlwind. I just couldn’t bear to see you hurt,” said Planner nervously.

  “Some sort of raid? On Marsh McLennan?” Katherine continued to exclaim.

  “Twenty questions again. Sorry, I’ve said too much as it is,” said Planner averting his eyes.

  In the distance, further down the slope, Katherine could see the baseball game, breaking up. “Can we talk again? Say next week? This isn’t a great place to talk.”

  “I’m afraid I’m in Washington next week then on a training course for the next couple of weeks after. In Oklahoma.”

  “Training course? Hey, and I was worried about your stress levels.”

  “It’s going to be quite a course.”

  Katherine sighed, “You’ve set me quite a puzzle here. And you seemed like a nice guy.”

  Planner said, “I think I may have a superman-complex; trying to save the world. But finding out I’ve been working for the lizards of Krypton.”

  Katherine tapped her teeth for a few seconds, “I think I have the answer to your problem though.”

  “Oh?”

  “Do your job,” she said. “If you have to… and no I don’t approve… But do it badly! It seems to work for the SEC.”

  Planner smiled and nodded, “That sounds like some decent kryptonite!
”

  At that point a blonde, ten year old girl came running up the slope carrying a heavy bag.

  “Mummy, Mummy, did you see how I hit the ball? First stroke!” she said.

  “I missed it! Ohhhh Nooo! Well done, though. Well done,” Katherine replied maternally.

  Katherine introduced her daughter to Planner, the first of her man friends she had ever introduced to her. The three of them threw the baseball around and laughed and chatted, like their previous conversation had never happened. Once it seemed like the right time to leave, Planner said goodbye, waving from a distance and walked back to his car.

  The ground felt springy, the air was light, the sun was warm. Planner smiled and started to hatch a plan.

  Chapter Twelve: Washington DC

  Planner and Bates were surrounded by many formally dressed men sitting behind a set of desks arranged in a horseshoe. These were generals and commanders of high rank if the number of badges and flashes attached to their uniforms were anything to go by. Only three men were not in uniform. One of them, at the head of the horseshoe, was the Lodge Master that Planner had to refer to as “Senator” in this meeting.

  Unusually for a meeting of this type no names were used, each person introduced themselves only by post names and role in the operation.

  The Lodge Master, aka Senator, introduced himself as “CoG-3a” even though most people there knew his name, and explained himself as the main political stakeholder for the operation. The others introduced themselves as “CinC-1a Air Force”, “NG-1a National Guard”, “Psyop-7 Media” and so on. There were 15 stakeholders there. Planner did not take notes in case anyone felt they were being “recorded”.

  Planner introduced himself as “Rainbow 1a Planner” and Bates as “Rainbow 1b Deputy”.

  The Senator read out the progress report including the underestimation of the number of hijackers, lack of indoctrinated flight crew, uncertainty with achievement of all objectives, particularly the impact on the Pentagon, and included Planner’s concerns on plausibility of the building “collapses”.

  One of the Generals snorted, “You can fool most of the people some of the time!”

  Another said, “Regarding the towers, we need an academic, independent of NIST, to provide a suitable explanation.110111”

  Another of the non-uniformed persons, a mid-thirties man, that introduced himself as Psyop-7 Media, nodded, “We will introduce our story early. The public’s mind is very receptive to authority messages when there is apparent chaos.”

  “We have talking heads positioned in all the major news channels,” volunteered Planner.

  “No,” mused Psyop-7 airily, “No, it needs to come from an ordinary Joe in the street. It needs to be self evident to a man-in-the-street what has happened; he’d be our own man, of course. And only then, would the story be repeated up by the talking heads. And then backed up by academics, as the General said.”

  Bates said, “Point noted. I’ll get on to the ground teams.”

  Psyop-7 smiled a little.

  The meeting continued with a simple animation of the day’s events, projected on the screen.

  Planner gave a forty five minute presentation on the state of each individual operation, finishing with a slide showing a timeline: the preparation state for each Operation’s Stage A team and lead times required for the Stage B and C teams. There were no interruptions. Planner sat down, and picked out a mint from a conveniently placed bowl.

  “Thank you very much, Planner,” assured the Senator. “It’s good to see everything on track and going to plan. I see the critical path is dependent upon the drones.”

  “Yes, we’re flying out later this week to perform rehearsals,” stated Planner.

  “I was just wondering whether you have entertained any cost saving measures?” said the Senator.

  “We have looked at using military drones rather than 767 airliners. However this only makes sense for the crash into the North Tower since all other crashes would be highly visible or pose problems for the Stage C teams, with the clear up and air crash investigations. I understand a high quality animation of the first crash is under construction to provide cover for the drone,” said Planner.

  “Suppose there were no air crash investigations?” said the Senator.

  “Not something I had considered,” shrugged Planner. “Every air crash on US soil has been investigated by the NTSB. They are after all, er… my speciality.”

  Psyop-7, probably the youngest person in the room, sighed.

  Bates looked at him and said curtly, “Do you have a better idea?”

  Psyop-7 started twisting in his seat uncomfortably, “Well we have multiple options here. One, to actually use planes or, two, use cruise missiles or some other military drone. So you’ve researched option one, civilian jets, and option two the use of military drones, and that’s great. Let’s explore that second scenario a bit more. Remember, we do have the media on our side to tell the story. The public will believe what we tell them and show them. So what do we have to worry about? Witnesses seeing the drones and somehow able to report it? People say crazy stuff all the time! And we can trot out our witnesses to say anything we want, even saying it was pink elephants. Then we show the video: hey, it really was flying pink elephants! And that story will be believed by the majority of the population, even if there are experts saying Flying Pink Elephants don’t exist! You catch my drift?”

  Some of the generals chuckled a little but Planner was not impressed.

  “Well maybe not.” He stood silent for a second before continuing. “But suppose we tell them what they would expect to see. What if we say,” said the young man smugly, “it was a big jet; people will certainly believe that. It is what they are expecting. If there are then contrary witness reports, then the-more-the-better in my book; They’ll just look like they’re crazy people! The TV viewers will believe the talking heads even more if people report that there was no big jet when we can show two, three, four videos of a big jet crashing into the towers.”

  Planner nodded slowly, knowing he had been saying something similar the previous week.

  “The first impact, say,” continued Psyop-7 nodding encouragingly back to Planner, “Fast and unexpected. No-one is too sure what it is, or whether they saw it correctly. Even if a few witness report it as a missile or small planes, this gap of uncertainty is just for a few minutes before the whole world sees another big jet, live on TV.”

  “Indeed, with no air crash investigation, then I would recommend that scenario. Of course, you’d need to rig up explosives in the right area. That would take quite a long time to prepare…”

  The Senator interrupted, “Planner, you might not be aware of this but we have been running a contingency plan for the past year or so. We haven’t only created an animation to cover the approach of drone aircraft, we have also been preparing the impact locations on the twin towers. Our primary plan, the one you have working on, is to use drone airliners. Our contingency plan, has been to use explosives in the towers and merely use TV animated graphics to display the impact on the towers.”

  “Animation?” said Planner stunned.

  “Yes,” said Psyop-7, “Using commercially available real time animation technology.”

  “So you are proposing a scenario where aircraft or drones are not used at all?” said Planner incredulously.

  Pysop-7 continued crisply to the quiet room, “Yes, no aircraft at all. We manage the news. The world will see explosions and we’ll provide animations of the planes hitting the towers. Before you say anything let me tell you some more. There are multiple benefits: accuracy; you can’t miss with pre-planted explosives and computer animation. Control, flexibility, cost… It’ll definitely much cheaper: we’ve spent $1million on the animation. On the drones it would be $400million. That’s quite a difference. And there are less things to go wrong. We’ll just use our own witness reports and later, we can show poor quality video live and then show high quality animation of the crash ev
ent later…” Psyop-7 stood up and asked for some media to be loaded into the laptop connected to the projector.

  Pysop-7 explained the video being presented. “This is the first crash, as seen from the ground. The plane arrives from the north but we only have to animate from this building, here, to the impact point. The jet will look as though it flies behind this building and then absorbed into the north tower.”

  “What happens if the weather is different,” asked Bates.

  “This is just the animation, we’ll capture footage from the day and apply the animation as a composite,” said Psyop-7 coolly, and continued. “For the second impact, we have suggested multiple views and viewpoints: from the side, the bottom, flat-on and also, and I’ll think you’ll like this, live from helicopters!”

  “How are you going to do that?” said Planner, surprised and unnerved.

  “While the side and flat-on views uses the same high quality animation models as the first impact video, and will be slow to deliver, the helicopter views will have simple models, seen from a long distance and from the other side of the tower. The tower itself becomes a mask to the animated image. You won’t see the actual crash.”

  “And you can do that real-time on live TV?” said Planner.

  “Actually no. There will be about a five second delay. Record the explosion, add the animation, broadcast then cut back to live TV. Ten second delay, tops. You can do this live: composite three images together: the bottom layers is the live TV view, the next layer is the aircraft model and the third layer is live view by with the bright sky keyed to be a transparent layer. The aircraft will look like it’s flying behind buildings and into the towers,” said Psyop-7 smugly.

  “I don’t know about this,” said Planner.

  “TV replay will be instantly available, making people doubt their own recall of the event. There will be very few who remain unshakable in their belief that it was not a large plane that just crashed and those sceptics will not get much air time on the day or ever after. After the airlines announce they’ve lost two jets, any witness dissent will be obliterated. If someone says there were no planes, their views will be dismissed because, you know, everyone has seen the TV. Shall I show you the psychological experiments we’ve conducted upon memory recall when confronted by faked TV evidence?”