Profane Men

by Rex Miller

  The man sitting at KILL’s master control console was listening to the young woman say, “Code Name Tiger’s Eye asks, do you need a reliable stateside-based contact for a special assignment?” At the exact moment this tape thumps out of the monitors, the same words are being reflected by satellite to a giant radio-relay unit that feeds COMINCON, Communications Intelligence Control.

  Approximately seven seconds later in the control center of COMINCON, another man is doing much the same as the KILL engineer. He is listening to a woman’s voice on his expensive, state-of-the-art monitor system. As 47-450 is being aired, REFMON KM1/186, the COMINCON indicia on this monitor segment appears thousands of miles from its origin on a flickering screen.

  “Code Name Tiger’s Eye.” It is 11:01 a.m. Greenwich Mean. Midnight in Omaha. Time, both relative and absolute, swallows, moves, ignores datelines. Time ticks away. Times lie. A watch file opens. Another entry is made. Whirling brain reels think their instant electro-thoughts onto millions, billions of miles of spinning, fast-forwarding memory tape banks. A machine brain so intricate its very concept boggles the untrained mind instructs a megaplexing unit to begin searching its amazing network of relays, servos, and microcircuitry, for a means to feed the comprehensive trace-and-search data to the waiting online terminals.

  Metal and Mylar and magic reels remember. Machines think. Tiny microchips reroute encoded storage information. Time-sharing codes speak, reply, answer. Relays click, connections coalesce, spinning uncountable imponderables into a palpable essence of compu-fact that will print as machine truth. Someone’s number will be up. Trace and transfer will do their party trick. Keys will type. A spark of impulse will speak to an invisible microscopic tape strip. Online terminals will converse in a dead language.

  Upstairs, where the scarred, badly pocked woman has been cooling her heels in an outer office, Beals’s secretary tells her she can go in now. As she enters the office, the legendary entrepreneur Toby Beals, whose current net worth is estimated at over twenty-eight million dollars, looks up from a stack of papers and greets her cordially.

  “Princess! Great to see you, babe.” He stands and says, “You’re doing such a super job for me. Here, sit here.”

  “Thanks. That’s good to know,” she says.

  “How about a cup of coffee? Tea?”

  “Oh, thanks but no. I don’t want to take up much of your time, Toby, but I want to ask a big favor of you. I know I still have some time on our current twenty-six-week contract, but if it is at all possible, I want to ask you to let me out of it, I’d like out of this KILL thing if there’s any way on Earth . . .”

  He just looks at her and she goes ahead while she has the nerve. “These spots with the obvious coded messages and all . . . I just want out. I can’t be a part of this . . . of the direction it’s taking.”

  “Well, those are just exotics, babe. They shouldn’t be anything to cause you concern.” He smiles warmly. “I need you right now,” he says, shaking his head. “I have to be able to rely on the highest level of professionalism as far as air product goes. I can’t go into all the details for you, but I have to keep you here right now. I need you badly.” He can see she is crestfallen. “Look. Stick it out with me for another ninety days. You do this for me, and if you’re still feeling this way in three months I’ll move you to any of my other properties with no decrease in pay. How does that sound?”

  “It’s very generous. But . . . please — I just can’t stay here. Please understand me, Toby. With your permission, I just want to give notice now and get out. I can’t hack it. May I please — I would . . . I assure you I would treat anything I know about the operation in total confidence. I wouldn’t even use it in my resume if you didn’t want me to,” she blunders on.

  “I thought you were happy with the company.” He is still shaking his head.

  “With the company. With you — always. But I’ve just got to get out of this thing. I can’t handle it anymore.” She feels herself tremble.

  “Have you got a better offer or something?”

  “Oh, no! I’ve got offers, but they’re nothing. I’ll play hell ever making anywhere near what you pay me. I know that. That part is fine. I just can’t cut it with all the secret codes and everything. I mean we’re just daring the military to do something. It’s such madness, Toby. I mean I’m the one reading all this stuff. If they ever penetrate the operation I would . . .” She fights her terror. “I would be at great personal risk. I’m quite frightened. Please let me out of this.”

  She has started shaking and he says as soothingly as he can, “Naturally I don’t like you being so concerned over the operation.”

  “Yes. Well, I don’t like it, either. I’m a loyal employee, but I just have to get out of here. Can’t I please give you notice now?”

  “What’s your idea of notice?”

  “. . . Could I just give you the standard two weeks? Toby, I’d be so grate — ”

  “Two weeks! Come on, babe, let’s be fair here. I can’t replace you in two months. Be fair with me. I’ve given you a good home on the air, moved you around, paid you a helluva salary for — what? — seven years? Be reasonable with me.”

  “It’s been six years and you have been great to work for. I just can’t go on with it. If I could I would. I’ll give you three weeks, but that’s it, I’ve got to be out of it.”

  “Uh-uh. I can’t let you do that. I’m in business, dear. I’ve just explained to you that I’m right in the middle of some very delicate business dealings and I can’t take any chances with the air sound. Now, you are still under contract with me and you’ll have to abide by the terms of the agreement you signed.”

  “Hey. You know you can’t enforce those contracts. All I’d have to do is start doing a poor job on the air. There’s a thousand ways to break those contracts on both sides, you know that better than I do, I’m sure. I . . . Look. I don’t want to stay. I would never have agreed to do spots with this kind of content. The code messages — they could be anything. Military secrets. In my voice.”

  “I’m sorry too, but just give me a couple of months and I don’t care what you do after that. OK?”

  She shakes her head no. She’d only seen him turn bright red like this once before, when they had their one and only unpleasant confrontation that time. With all good intentions, he had offered to fix her up with a cosmetic surgeon and she had screamed at him. But they’d gone beyond that. She’d given him six years of top-quality air work and been pretty decently paid for it. She had heard him say she had the best female voice in radio.

  “Please. Please let me go. Three weeks notice today? Please, Toby?”

  “Hm-mm. Not right now,” he says quietly.

  “The secret messages” — she takes a deep breath and forces herself to speak as quietly and coolly as he does, thinking in one language and speaking in another, choosing her phraseology with the utmost care — “are the final straw. And they’re going to take KILL down. I’m not staying to be a part of that.”

  “Listen to me for a minute.” He smiles paternally. “You keep going on about the code messages. Good Lord, girl, you’re way off base here. I’m going to say something to you that is very confidential, just like those memos that you’ve been asked to memorize and shred, the ones you regard as so unnecessary.”

  “I’ve never said — ” He stops her with the palm of his hand up, fingers spread.

  “Let me finish. These are some of our top trade secrets and they’re not to be taken lightly. You have to understand if I take you into my confidence on this matter that you’ll never repeat anything you’re told. I have no assurance of this other than your word. Now, do I have that absolute assurance?”

  “Yes,” she says, so angry and confused she shakes her head no.

  “Forget about the fucking code messages. They are nothing, OK? You’ve seen a magician in a stage show, he goes like this wi
th his wand and he makes a few moves over the top hat — see? Nothing in the top hat, folks. Now . . . and he rolls up his sleeve like so . . . and reaches in and abracadabra! He pulls the rabbit out of the hat, or the birdcage out of his pocket, or whatever the trick is. Why did he point to the top hat?” She obviously has no idea what in the hell he’s talking about. “He pointed to the top hat with his magic wand so that you’d look at the wand or that hat, or whatever. Anywhere except over at his left hand that was going to steal the birdcage out of the pocket while you were busy looking over here.

  “It’s the basic technique behind that sort of an illusion and it is called misdirection. Misdirection . . .” Princess is sitting like a rock, staring straight ahead.

  “Do you know how many foreign governments and competitive broadcasters would like to hang me up by my thumbs? Dozens. KILL, I don’t have to tell you, is under surveillance by, I would just estimate, anywhere from twenty to fifty intelligence services. All the big powers are all over us now, the little guys who neither of us ever heard of, industrial people — AT&T Intel, for all I know, may have a contract out on me. Why? Because there is a great deal of money involved, not to mention power. The coded spots and all that — those spots are misdirection, magic-wand time.”

  “But if they don’t know, then what difference does — ”

  “Hold it! They don’t know? You’re going to sit there and tell me the major intelligence agencies of the superpowers who work from bottomless, unaccountable security funding haven’t the resources to track down some phony phone or remail ad?” He stands up and walks over to a computer keyboard. “They can’t break my codes?

  “I want to show you something. Come over here. You know how they used to talk about television being the window on the world? Well, this baby is the window on the world.” He turns it on and types for a moment. She sees her name and a code word flash across the screen. She realizes with an intake of air that she is looking at her own finances. The exact state of her savings and checking account balances, her CDs, stock market positions, investment, rollovers, taxes, quarterly estimates; it’s all there on the screen. Inwardly she is seething with indignation, but she plays it cool.

  “Very impressive. I wish I had one of those.”

  “No. You don’t get it yet. That isn’t anything. I can get that in any major metro market financial institution. Just go down into the basement of any big bank or S&L and punch you up on the screen. That’s nothing. But I’ve got you in here.” He types another word. The screen blinks as new lines of information appear across the green background.

  “I’ve got you down cold.” She reads information about herself there is no way he should know. She is so alarmed and surprised she forgets to be enraged by this intrusion on her privacy. That will come sometime later.

  “You have no right to that information. I don’t know how you obtained it, but I’d think this might be actionable. You have no legal right — ”

  “No, of course I don’t. I’m trying to show you something. I have no interest in this data on you. How much you pay for your Balmain, your” — he squints at the screen — “Vent Vert, or who you sleep with or any of that. The information is maintained because I might need it. I hold this sort of a file on everyone whose lives might impinge upon my business in some way. I could care less that” — he turns and glances at the screen as it fills up again with personal information — “you’ve sent audition tapes to two of my competitors, or whatever data the computer has on you. Nor am I going to discuss with you the manner in which such data is obtained or its legality or its tacit indictment of what you consider my lack of business ethics. I’m not showing you this stuff to impress you, or because we’re such good, close buddies and that I think if you see what I know about you that you might stay with me. I’m showing it to you because I don’t want any waves made in this operation right now. I want you to stay and do your job, and I’m going to prove to you that you don’t have the option to quit until it is mutually agreed.”

  “You don’t have to prove to me that you have resources or that you’re a wealthy man.”

  “Wealthy? Wealth is nothing. I’m trying to show you something about information. Data. Facts. Information is the ultimate power trip. Try to understand what I’m showing you here, babe. You’re in our computer. I can erase that data.” He does so and the screen blinks out. “Nothing has changed. You’re still down cold. You’re part of a team. The people I represent would no more let a source of potential damage to the organization leave . . . well, you can surely see the problem. You need to be a little circumspect here. Relax. Show some caution. As soon as it becomes feasible — six, maybe eight weeks down the road — I’ll cut you loose myself.”

  “What you said about the people you represent, that really sounds threatening, Toby. I’m getting crazy. Really, I just can’t live with this.”

  “What can I tell you? You bought into this. Now you want out. Fair enough, but it has to be on the company’s terms, OK?”

  “No, damn it, it’s not OK.”

  “Well. What can I say?” He glances at his watch.

  “I won’t take up any more of your time.”

  “Just think it over carefully before you do anything. There’s a lot of stuff involved you don’t know anything about. If you do something hasty, in the heat of your feeling angered at the company, or me, you might put yourself in a position where, you know, uh — I couldn’t protect, so to speak, and suddenly you’d find yourself in deep shit, kiddo.”

  “I’m in some deep shit now.”

  “If you don’t want to hear what I’m saying . . . Or if you think I’m conning you, then there’s not much I can say.” He sits on the edge of his desk. “Remember this, you have no genuine cause for alarm if you’ll just do your job. You are pulling down a fabulous salary. Nice hours. We adore you. And the air stuff you’re so concerned about is pure misdirection. It’s just the guy in the top hat and the magic wand.” He snaps his fingers. “Abracadabra!”

  As Toby Beals speaks, a PRC-25 leaning up against a banana tree somewhere in I Corps blasts “Code Name Abracadabra” into the ether, and approximately seven seconds later on the other side of the world, COMINCON transfers the word to online terminal subscribers as an incantation in nine languages, a magical charm, an amulet, an epithet, a talisman, an ellipsis, an elongation, a coefficient of the numerical value 365.0, an apocope, and an isosceles triangle.

  The heavily scarred young woman with the enticing voice slams out of the building in a heated rage, fighting to regain control of her temper, thinking in Chinese, as she bids herself to present a calm outward facade. She loathes that feeling of being trapped, and it requires all of her powers of concentration to temporarily shake off the crushing sense of it that has followed her down to the street, stalking her like a vulture. She manages to throw it off with a great effort of will as she briskly strides toward her destination a few blocks away.

  The byword of a true professional is preparation. When Princess had first arrived in Vietnam, she’d been befriended by a young Vietnamese woman her own age. Somewhat apart in social position their mutual disfigurement had nonetheless forged a bond of at least casual friendship. They saw each other infrequently, but the friendship had lasted and the women had grown remarkably close, each believing herself to be liked and admired better than was actually the case, until the admiration and affection had become genuinely felt.

  Princess, who lived only for her career and her preoccupation with the acquisition of material wealth, found herself drawn to her new friend in spite of what she considered to be naive ideologies and alien attitudes. Her friend had a lover, and once she had told Princess a little about him. He was a Viet Cong deserter, only a boy really, who had fled the North when the remaining members of his family had all been killed.

  Now he lived eking out a sustenance doing whatever came along. Princess had learned he was proficient in the
violent tradecraft of war and that he was willing to perform certain tasks if the rewards justified the danger. She was eleven minutes late when she strode through the doors of Fifi’s French Flamboyant and saw the slim, young Viet sitting in the dark next to her friend.

  She was a believer in first impressions, and in that instant he appeared to her as competent and perhaps sufficiently resolute for her needs. She always went with her instincts.

  Time ticks.

  Her friend’s lover is not what he appears, but rather a hardened, somewhat obnoxious character whom she finds impolite, insultingly brusque, and implacable. She fights hard to dampen her rage and frustration and eventually, with constant wheedling, intercession, and gentling by her friend, he softens somewhat.

  Then he quotes a figure which staggers her momentarily it is so outrageously high. But whereas she would normally haggle with an out-of-work street person, she immediately agrees to the amount.

  She will have to give up nearly half of her Swiss nest egg, as this money must be untraceable. But she plows ahead, her resolve bolstered by the heady promise of freedom and the undeniable sweetness of revenge. The next step is hers. She must give her friend certain plans, schematics if possible, an engineering layout. There are other details, which she tries to grasp and assimilate calmly. She leaves fraught with the perilousness and potential joyousness of the supervening events. The parallel lines lengthen.