Operation Damocles

by Oscar L. Fellows

  “The only inspiration these days has to do with crime. Fraud, political maneuvering, legal lying, fakery—anything shitty. It’s all obvious, but in our society, not necessarily illegal. Even when it is, you have to have hard evidence to prove it, and even then, the crooked, because of their station in life, may be pardoned. The surprising thing is that even the dumb bastards that mismanage things in the first place wonder why things seem to be getting worse. Aaagh! For the last twenty years, I’ve had a growing desire to live on a deserted island and be absolutely unconscious of the rest of humanity.”

  “That’s just the hippie in you, Hector,” grinned Haas. “You felt the same way when we were undergraduates. Our generation hated authority and social manipulation then, just as much as we do now.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Ortiz laughed. He made a “V” with his fingers. “Peace,” he said.

  XXV

  It was 5:30 p.m. the following Friday afternoon, and Townsend sat in a chair across from Ted Wallace. Townsend had just gotten off work in Mountain View and driven to Stanford.

  Wallace’s cluttered desk butted up against two of the painted cinderblock walls, and bookcases and shelves overflowed with papers, books and three-ring binders with arcane legends on their spines.

  They were drinking coffee. Wallace had loaned Townsend two of his graduate students, a girl and a boy, and three PCs, and encamped them in one end of a laboratory where a laser was set up on an optical table. They had arranged steel wall lockers and storage cabinets to divide the lab and delineate a space for Townsend and his helpers to work. There were two lab tables and a desk with a telephone. Townsend had claimed the desk. The laser experiment was Wallace’s own, so no students used that particular lab, and it was quiet.

  “Making any headway?” asked Wallace.

  “Some. I’ve laid out a detailed routine for the kids to follow, and they’re hard at it. I’ve got them tracking down majority stockholders in a list of international corporations. We’re looking for affiliates—subsidiaries and holding companies that have common stockholders and are in the top twenty percent of profit-takers in the world.

  “We’re also looking for signs of political access, whether obvious or just potential, and building something like a truth table to correlate our data. I hope it will point up some promising candidates, and assuming it does, we’ll begin in-depth background investigations.

  “I have a few starting points already, but I’ll keep them to myself and see what the kids come up with. If they identify some of those people that I know are involved, I’ll know that my matrix is working and that the kids are being thorough.”

  “What did you tell the students?”

  “That we are doing a geopolitical study on international commerce,” said Townsend. “What did you tell them about me?”

  Wallace sighed, wrinkling his brow and looking at his fingernails. “Just that you are with a private engineering firm that has a funded contract to perform a government study. Nothing more. I told them that you would look in on them evenings and weekends, if they wanted to work those hours, and they agreed.”

  “That’s good,” said Townsend, smiling. “You don’t like me very much, do you, Dr. Wallace?”

  Wallace looked startled, then smiled tightly in return. “You’re given to bluntness, aren’t you, Mr. Townsend. I’ll be direct, too. I don’t like government goons. I never have. Unfortunately, in my line of work, the government pays for most of the research that gets done. I won’t give up my line of work, so I have to deal with them. This is the first time I’ve had to put up with one of you in my lab, though.”

  Townsend’s gaze turned flat and cold, and somehow, without moving, his physical presence suddenly seemed to change, to dominate the small office. To Wallace, it was if he had suddenly realized he was in the presence of a living werewolf. The hackles rose involuntarily on the back of Wallace’s neck, and a feeling of sick foreboding settled into his stomach like a lead weight. The blood drained from his face. The familiar room had suddenly become a close and confining place with no way out, and he felt in deadly peril.

  Townsend’s voice was soft. “I gave up my career, my security and my government paycheck when I found out that working for them conflicted with my moral code,” he said. “Since you are willing to go on working for them, however indirectly, even though you hate what they stand for, then I guess that makes you a hypocrite and a whore, as well as a ‘government goon,’ Wallace.” He rose, and stood for a moment, gazing coldly down at Wallace—focused, calculating, restrained power—then turned and walked out of the office and down the tiled hallway, his footsteps echoing hollowly back to Wallace, who sat frozen in his chair for several minutes. Finally, Wallace took in a great, shuddering breath, and the blood rushed back into his face and hands, tingling. He took a drink of coffee, and his hand trembled. He had never been so afraid.

  ###

  In telling Ortiz about it later that evening, Wallace described it as, “A mask falling away from a human face to reveal a deadly, staring animal. An utter absence of mercy, coupled with deadly intent.” He shivered when he said it, and Ortiz knew the man was deeply shaken.

  “I know the feeling,” he said. “Men like Townsend and Eddie Teller fought their secret war for a long time; they lived with imminent death for years. It changes them in a way that’s impossible to describe. Oh, I suppose some psychologist could describe the mechanics of your reaction, and even profile the mental makeup of someone who is used to killing other men, but it doesn’t begin to convey the emotional impact of a firsthand experience, when you are suddenly facing one of them. I’ve experienced it a couple of times in my life.

  “Once, when I was a student, barely twenty-one, I went on a drinking spree in Tijuana with some classmates. We were in some smoke-filled dive watching some strippers, when I got sick. I found my way out back to an alley that smelled like a urinal. I threw up till my gut ached. All of a sudden, this black dude was standing there, looking at me, and looking up and down the alley. He had on one of those stocking hats, a dark sweatshirt and army fatigue pants.

  “Funny, the things that run through your mind at a time like that. His hands were in his pockets, and I knew he had a knife. I’ll never know the reason—money perhaps—but I knew he meant to kill me. I thought I was going to die in the dirt of that filthy alley, laying in that piss and vomit. I remember the cold night air against the back of my throat, and the taste of vomit in my mouth. I remember cold tears in my eyes. Neither of us said anything, but we looked into each other’s eyes and knew each other’s thoughts, and that rapport didn’t make any difference at all in what was about to happen.

  “Then, by the grace of God, three other guys came out the back door, laughing and staggering around drunkenly. They stopped there and lit cigarettes, and were laughing and talking, and the guy just turned and walked away. My legs almost gave way. I’ve never been back to Tijuana, and I haven’t frequented any rough bars since that night.

  “We take certain things for granted in other human beings. Maybe it’s one of those psychological curtains that we close to shut out fearful thoughts. Our minds won’t admit that the world is not a warm and fuzzy place—at least, not on an emotional level. We couldn’t stand the constant strain. When the curtain is suddenly pulled aside, we are shocked to find that the nightmares are real, after all. Yes, I do know the feeling.”

  “What should I do?” asked Wallace. “I hate myself for feeling like a coward, and I know I was wrong to insult him, and it’s going to be hell if I have to deal with someone I’m afraid of. It’s almost as if I were back in elementary school, and afraid of the school bully. I feel ashamed.”

  “I think you already know the answer,” said Ortiz. “First, forget your ego for the moment, and make up with him. If it was someone that you had frightened, or behaved badly to, a student for example, I know you well enough to know that you would seek him out and apologize. You wouldn’t feel any loss of face in that situation, and logica
lly, you shouldn’t in this situation. You admitted that you shouldn’t have insulted him. Just walk over there bearing an olive branch and say so.

  “Second, you don’t have to be a coward to be afraid of some things. It’s a survival instinct. You wouldn’t pick a fight with a prizefighter either, and Townsend is something much more dangerous. He’s also human, and can be rather likable if you give him a chance. We don’t know him well enough to let him in on certain things, but that doesn’t automatically make him our enemy. My instincts tell me he’s all right. Go shake hands.”

  ###

  The following morning, Wallace carried a box of warm donuts to the lab where Townsend and his team were working. As Wallace walked in, the two students looked up and greeted him. Townsend stopped his work at his computer keyboard and sat back in his chair, silently looking at Wallace. Wallace sat the donuts on the desk, glanced at the students, then back at Townsend.

  “Peace offering,” he said, indicating the donuts. “I apologize for the insult. I guess I always wanted to tell off some of the smug, government-program managers that I’ve had to deal with, and here you were, on my turf so to speak, and my resentment just boiled over. I’m sorry. I was unbelievably rude to you. I acted like an arrogant ass, and I had no call to take out my feelings on you. I would like to start over.” Wallace held out his hand, “Friends?”

  Townsend stood up and took the extended hand, but did not smile. “I’m willing to try,” he said. “God knows, I don’t need any enemies.”

  XXVI

  A month later, on the tenth of February, Jack Townsend was ferrying underclothes from the chest of drawers in his and Eve’s bedroom to an open suitcase on the bed. She was trying to dissuade him from taking a trip to Atlanta.

  They had not been apart since they met, and though she had been a very confident and independent woman in her former life, she had become very needful of his comforting presence. She was loving but not usually clinging, and he had noticed that her times of silence, her introspective moods, were getting to be less frequent. She was even playful much of the time now.

  He knew that eventually she would get over the trauma and her self-confidence would reassert itself. He secretly hoped that she would still love and want him when it happened. In the meantime, he didn’t mind her wanting to be with him as much as possible; in fact, he enjoyed it. Their love was new, and even though they were mature adults, they liked the petting and making calf eyes at one another, and he knew they needed it for a while. There would probably come a time, he thought ruefully, when he would sorely miss it. There would be plenty of time for sobriety and dignified reserve in their old age.

  “I don’t understand why you have to go,” Eve said, miserably.

  Jack stopped packing for a moment and sat on the bed beside her, taking her hand between his. “I’ve got to make a presentation to a review panel at the Advanced Research Projects Agency. It’s called ARPA. My company does defense-related work for them, and for NASA and other federal agencies as well.

  “We’ve got a contract to develop an automated warehousing and material-handling system for the Department of Defense. It’s all part of the downsizing of government. They are exploring ways to reduce personnel. Smart robot systems can control inventories, shift materiel, even qualify and select bidders to perform contract work. It’s a matter of designing robot warehouses and handling equipment that can accurately take inventory, ship and receive supplies, and place orders.

  “Prouss Engineering has the best proposal, and if we succeed in getting the award, we will develop a pilot project in Denver. It’s one of several government supply hubs. If we get the contract, I may have to do this often.

  “In any case, it couldn’t have come about at a more opportune time. I need a security clearance in order to keep this job, and I can fix that if I can get into the C.I.A. computer center in Atlanta. I can access some secret C.I.A. and F.B.I. databases from here, by computer modem, and I can read files, but I don’t have the access I need to write files into the databases.

  “I recently contacted an old friend in the C.I.A. Office of Development and Engineering who was stationed at the CERN high-energy physics laboratory in Geneva. He’s into all kinds of cutting-edge computer work and advanced systems design. Turns out that the agency has recalled a lot of people from overseas assignments to replace staff that were killed in Washington. Fred was one of them.

  “He’s in Atlanta now, and he can help me to install an in-depth history profile with a secret clearance in the F.B.I. files. All my references will be either the names of people killed in Washington, or dead of natural causes, and of course a few living people like Fred, who can vouch for me.

  “Since it is an industrial contractor clearance rather than something for a government post, I’m counting on no one within the agencies affected paying very much attention to it.” He paused a moment, then reluctantly, “I am also going to try to locate Broderick.”

  “Oh no,” said Eve, pleading with her eyes. “Oh, honey, I would die if anything happened to you. Can’t you just let it go; let them forget about us?”

  “That’s exactly why I need to find him, sweetheart. He’s the only one that’s driving the search for us. I don’t believe that we are high on the list of any of the regular law enforcement agencies, not even the regular federal boys—not with the reductions in force and everything else that’s going on these days.

  “It’s a personal thing with Broderick, for some reason. No sane man would have ordered your death in the first place. It was for too petty a reason. Hell, the federal government undergoes far worse criticism every day, even from conservative talk-radio hosts. Your incident would have been forgotten in a week. No, Broderick believes he has a mission to control what the public sees and hears, and he enforces his edicts with gangster-style tactics. As the kids would say, he’s a bent dude.”

  He resumed packing. “When he’s gone, his unit will disintegrate. We’ll be able to fade out of everyone’s memory and get on with our lives without constantly looking over our shoulders. In five years’ time we’ll be pillars of the community, Mrs. Townsend.” He pulled her up off the bed, took her in his arms and kissed her, holding her close. “Don’t worry about me, sweetheart,” he whispered. “I used to do this sort of thing for a living, remember?”

  Eve kissed him hard, and hugged him tightly, as if to imprint him with some spell that would keep him there, or insure his safe return. Finally, she relaxed and dropped her arms—began drying her wet eyes and runny nose with one of his T-shirts. “When will you be back?”

  “In about a week if everything goes as planned. I’ll call you every night. I know you can’t help but worry. Just go on as usual. Try to occupy yourself; put your mind on other things. Watch out for strangers, though, and don’t open the door to anyone you don’t know. Use the intercom and the peephole. For instance, if a cop comes to the door, presumably for some routine reason, let him stand there while you call the police station and verify that he is who he says he is. If he isn’t, tell them that someone impersonating an officer is at your door.

  “Next, call Eddie. If he doesn’t answer, call his beeper number. If he sees this number, he knows to come. Then go back to the door and tell the guy that you called the police.

  “Keep the doors locked at all times. Stay away from the windows. The phone and power lines are buried where no one can easily get at them. The doors are heavy and the windows are barred. He’s not going to spend the time necessary to break in, if he thinks the cops are on their way.

  “After he leaves, wait for Eddie, then get in his car and go with him. He will know what to do. I’ll pick you up at his place when I get back. I don’t anticipate any trouble, but I want you to be prepared. You need to react just the way I’ve described. Can you do it?”

  “Yes. I can do it,” she said.

  “Good. I know you can.” He closed the suitcase and set it by the door. He kissed her again, lightly on the lips. “Let’s try to get some sl
eep. I’ve got to be at the airport at 5:30.”

  XXVII

  At midnight of February 14, Saint Valentine’s Day, by prior arrangement, a man sitting in a darkened motel room in Titusville, Florida, received a telephone call. Next to the phone was a small electronic box, and the man reached over and threw a switch as soon as he heard the caller’s voice.

  He said hello, listened a moment, then said, “Yes, it’s me. Turn on your encryptor. How are you?”

  “It’s on. I’m fine.” The voice sounded sad, distant.

  The Titusville man said so.

  “I’m okay,” assured the second man, in a resigned tone. “I’m just tired, and in a mood today. I’m hopping time zones like a kid playing hopscotch, and working twenty-hour days. I can’t stop thinking about the cost in lives. It’s one thing to contemplate doing something of that enormity, to remotely rationalize the costs versus the long-term benefits to humanity, but it’s such a horrible thing to know you have done it. I can’t help thinking about the innocents—especially the children.”

  “I never thought it would really go that far,” said the Titusville man, “when I agreed to help you. I thought I knew you well, and I didn’t think you could go through with it—not all the way, I mean. I had no conception of how powerful that thing is. My God, it could dominate the world! And from what I’m hearing through the grapevine, that is one of several schemes being concocted in certain quarters. As we thought, the Air Force Space Command is planning to try to use Diana to find and destroy it, but there is another group in Washington that wants to gain control of it for their own ends. Can they do it?”