Program for a Puppet

by Roland Perry

  “Who is linked into this system?”

  “All major academies funding us.”

  “I see,” Graham said thoughtfully.

  The professor plowed on. “The real beauty of our operation is that we transcend national boundaries,” he said haughtily, “but of course, we only suggest solutions. If an institution such as the United Nations likes what we suggest, then pressure might be brought to bear on the problem in a practical way.”

  Graham decided to move on to the topic that would be sure to arouse Letovsky’s suspicions.

  “I’d like to change the subject, if I may,” he said. “It is rare that a Western journalist has such an opportunity.”

  “Well, I’m afraid we have not much time, Mr. Graham,” Letovsky said. “But please …”

  “Thank you. At a recent Soviet Party Congress it was announced that the Soviet Union would produce a major new series of computers in a long-term plan. But at your last Congress, there was no mention of its progress. Has it been dropped?”

  There was an almost imperceptible flicker of uncertainty from the professor. But it was there. Leaning back in his chair, he said coldly, “I am not involved in this area, but it was endorsed by the Party. As far as I know, the plan went ahead.”

  “Then it is continuing?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are manufacturing all your own equipment?”

  “Of course.”

  “How many computers are involved?”

  Letovsky paused. Until now he had been arrogantly self-assured. Suddenly his manner changed. He shifted in his seat. “I have no idea,” he said slowly. “I said before, Mr. Graham, I am not involved in the planning.”

  Letovsky was on the defensive now, so Graham decided it would be prudent to stop. The Australian closed his notebook and switched off the tape. “Thank you very much, Professor,” he said evenly; “that about covers the questions I had.”

  “May I ask you something, Mr. Graham?” Letovsky said. “Why are you so interested in Soviet computer production?”

  “Anything new the Soviet Union produces makes news in the West,” Graham replied nonchalantly.

  “I would expect that you will submit your writings to us before they go to press,” Hart said.

  “I have a policy, gentlemen,” Graham replied firmly as he stood up. “I always refer back to source if there is any doubt.”

  “I would like to see it, please,” Letovsky said firmly, “in any event.”

  Graham stood his ground. “I cannot guarantee that, Professor. If you want public relations, write it yourself.”

  Letovsky looked annoyed, but said nothing. Hart, in a real dither, opened the door.

  Graham turned to the professor. “Thank you for the interview,” he said. “You’ve been most helpful.”

  Letovsky had not got up to shake hands.

  George Lionel Revel, chief prosecuting lawyer for the U.S. Justice Department, was unexpectedly alerted to the strain in the normally confident tone of his opposite number in the Lasercomp defense.

  Perhaps no one else in the packed New York courthouse sensed the change in David L. Cartwright, the usually superconfident gentleman for the defense in his elegant lightweight suit of conservative gray. Suddenly he seemed to be feeling the heat. For the last thirty minutes he had droned on about the virtues of Lasercomp’s importance to America’s economic health through employment, and income from massive sales abroad, and the “great” technology it must be allowed to bring the nation and the world. Now he conferred earnestly at the prosecution lawyers’ table before he turned to the judge once more. “Your Honor,” he said, blinking several times, “throughout this case the government has seemed to want to sacrifice ingenuity, ability and progress—the very qualities that made this nation great. It seems to have a formula for mediocrity, incompetence and failure, which will ultimately reduce our great nation to the level of a banana republic. The defense firmly believes that this lawsuit is part of a socialist conspiracy by certain members of the present administration in Washington to destroy free enterprise in this country”—he paused as several people in the packed public gallery voiced their disapproval. He spoke louder—”by attacking corporations that have been successful!”

  There were more groans from the public gallery. Judge Peter K. Shaw called for order.

  “Yes, a conspiracy. And I submit to Your Honor that it stems from the White House itself!”

  Revel, his large gray eyes and sharp features alert, was on his feet, bumping the table in his haste to be heard.

  “Objection, Your Honor,” he yelled. “Apart from being absurd, this is totally irrelevant to the case.”

  “Objection sustained,” the judge said. “All reference to a conspiracy shall be stricken from the record. The defense will kindly refrain from red herrings and irrelevancies.”

  The damage had been done, and the defense’s outburst would be sure to bring into the open the festering conflict between the President of the United States, Everett Rickard, and Lasercomp. “Conspiracy” may have been misleadingly emotive, but the defense had highlighted a point. Everett Rickard had been the first President to attempt to bring justice to the marketplace, dominated by the major corporations. He was telling the multinationals to come to heel, and they were not liking it.

  Lasercomp had always been his prime target. With the election close and incidents like this, the battle was being drawn into the open. A victory for Rickard would boost his stakes on polling day. A win for Lasercomp would be a major blow for Rickard and leave the corporation all but invincible.

  For George Revel, it too was an important battle, on a personal level. Revel had come from a lower-middle-class Jewish family in the Bronx. His father, a refugee from Hitler’s Germany, was a poetic dreamer who barely managed to support his family as a tailor, but instilled in his son a burning desire for knowledge and a deep respect for intellect. His mother, like her husband a refugee from Nazi tyranny, was a shrewish, domineering woman who constantly nagged her husband for his failure to rise in the world. From her, Revel acquired a lifelong drive to excel. Graduating from America’s number-one public high school, the Bronx High School of Science, at seventeen, his outstanding academic record earned him a scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At twenty-one he had already earned his master’s degree in engineering and was working on a doctorate. Then the reaction set in. He had come to loathe the cloistered world of the academic.

  Abandoning his original plan to finish his doctorate and to teach at MIT or Harvard, he was lured into the intriguing world of computers by Lasercomp, which scoured the campuses for talent. At first he enjoyed the challenge of being at the creative forefront of one of man’s greatest inventions. He was quickly acknowledged for his ability and shot up the Lasercomp ladder until his superiors were forced to give him managerial responsibility and steer him into the marketing side. Then things began to sour. When he got the sniff of the Lasercomp modus operandi, it sickened him. The forces behind the façade were not what he expected, or wanted to be associated with. After nine years he eased his way out. Disillusioned, and now past thirty, Revel left his wife and two young daughters to travel to Europe, Asia and Australia for eighteen months. He began to search for a new career.

  It was law—the only other professional area that had always fascinated him. After three years at Harvard, where he topped every examination and was an editor of the Law Review, he again tried the business world and corporate law.

  At thirty-five, his first legal job was with a medium-sized New York law firm. Revel soon found himself defending a company that was polluting the river and countryside of Virginia. He won the case, and every one like it that followed.

  Soon he was the number-one choice for the defense in the big money cases. And, as before at Lasercomp, he began to hate his work. He cried out for a chance to excel at something socially redeeming in law. He left the firm.

  Simultaneously, President Rickard appropriated more funds to
the Justice Department for its fight against Lasercomp. More money meant more people on the undermanned prosecution team. George Revel applied for one of those jobs. The Justice Department was very pleased to have such a wealth of experience to add to its team. Not only was he outstanding in court, but he could offer an unparalleled knowledge of the defendant. Lasercomp, in a predictable move, objected strongly to the presiding judge, but failed to block Revel’s move onto the case. Within eighteen months he became chief prosecuting lawyer and changed the face of the trial. After the years of legal charade, in which the eventual result seemed only a formality, there was suddenly a feeling in American legal circles that Lasercomp could be in trouble. The possibility of its being beaten in the case and fragmented was now conceivable.

  For this reason, the mention of the President of the U.S. being involved in a conspiracy reminded George Revel that it was Everett Rickard who had given him the chance to stretch his talents to the full.

  Professor Letovsky was concerned about his interview with Graham. Five hours after it, he called Hans Hart to his office. “I want a complete check on that journalist’s background, employers, the lot.”

  “What’s wrong, Professor?”

  “Three days ago he met a trucking contractor, Joachim Kruntz. This man used to make Znorel-Lasercomp consignment runs to the border. The journalist has paid him for information.”

  Hart blanched as Letovsky added, “I hope you did not disclose anything before he met me.”

  Hart shook his head as he thought quickly through the questions Graham had asked him.

  “No. No, I’m sure.”

  “We must stop him writing anything. He may be dangerous to our operations. You must find out where he is staying and insist we see anything he intends to publish.”

  • • •

  By seven that evening, Graham had completed telephoning through a 1,200-word article from his hotel to Sir Alfred’s company, Ryder Publications, in London. From there it would end up in a London daily paper the next day, and within twenty-four hours would be on network wires to press outlets around the world. Sir Alfred had hesitantly agreed to see that Graham’s article would be published. The Australian thought it might provoke a reaction from someone.

  With the story on its way, Graham decided to try to follow the late-night smuggling consignment. There was just a chance that he could obtain some vital information.

  He had several hours before the consignment was supposed to leave for the border, so he planned to hear La Traviata, at the Staatsoper, and dine out after it. Before leaving, he booked his return flight to London for 6:00 P.M. the next day.

  At 11:30 P.M. Graham left a Rumanian restaurant and walked the short distance back to his hotel. He changed into his black tracksuit and running shoes and packed a valise with a change of clothes, his passport, tape recorder and all the notes on the assignment. Almost as an afterthought he decided to take his movie camera. He took a couple of minutes to study a map of the route to Stölenburg village and the location of the warehouse of the Stuttgart-based company, Znorel Electronics before he left the room.

  Graham emerged from the hotel at midnight and moved into the deserted streets to his Mercedes. After speeding through Vienna’s suburbs into the countryside and past the Stölenburg Palace, he found the warehouse, and pulled onto the side of the road about half a mile away from the entrance. It was a moonlit night and he could make out the warehouse easily across the flat countryside.

  He decided not to go any closer until there was some activity.

  About an hour later, Graham heard the roar of trucks and the sound of voices. A few minutes later, he could make out several vehicles moving off from the warehouse like a giant, squat centipede. The convoy was followed by a station wagon.

  When all the vehicles were well on their way along the main road running northwest toward the border, Graham drove carefully, lights off, about four hundred yards behind.

  He followed in a slow crawl for the next three hours, until he heard the trucks clatter across a bridge. He pulled off the road, got out of the car, and climbed onto the roof. Above the trees of a thick wooded area he could see an oblong building where the trucks had gone. Graham wanted the safety of the Mercedes but he certainly would be spotted if he took it any closer. He had to go on foot if he wanted to see what was going on inside that building. He turned the Mercedes round to face the way he had come and drove it across the road, under some overhanging trees, close to a dry creek bed.

  Hurriedly camouflaging the car, Graham collected his camera and made his way stealthily across the creek bed in the direction of the warehouse.

  After about two hundred yards, he suddenly reached a seven-foot wire-mesh fence. He could see and hear several men. They were sitting on crates and passing around flasks of drink. Graham made his way along the fence until the men were out of sight. He gripped the top of the fence and hoisted himself over it. Crouching low, he crept to the wall of the warehouse. Then he edged along the wall to the back of the building. He found a door. Graham tried the bolt. It wouldn’t give. Moving along another ten yards, he found another door. This time the bolt slid back easily and noiselessly. He inched the door open. Crates piled ten feet high surounded the door. Graham moved inside, leaving the door ajar. Above the line of crates he could make out a ramp which ran at sixty degrees almost to the roof. It was connected to another ramp with sides about three feet high which ran the full length of the building. It was very near the roof. If only he could get up there. It would be a perfect vantage point to film whatever was going on below under high-powered quartz lighting.

  On the other hand, he would be a sitting duck if anyone with a weapon spotted him. He eased between the crates and could see several trucks at the other end of the building. Creeping over to the sloping ramp, Graham lay flat against it. Using his strength he hauled himself up using the foothold slats. At the top it was easier going along the roof ramp. He kept his body low as he crept along it to avoid throwing a shadow. About halfway along he had a close look at his light meter. It was showing a poor reading. He rolled on his back and opened the camera aperture to its widest.

  Graham straightened carefully and then swung over the side of the ramp, one leg hard against it to avoid toppling over. He zoomed in on crates being hoisted by an overhead crane from trucks belonging to Znorel and lowered to ground level, where they were unpacked and inspected and repacked for other trucks. Graham held the zoom on this operation and captured clear shots of computers, all unmarked. After thirty seconds the strain on his back was too much. He eased himself back and lay flat on his back for three minutes.

  Then he swung his body out again, but this time too far. He slipped and grabbed desperately for the side of the ramp as the camera fell to the ground, nearly hitting one of the workmen directly below. Graham just managed to clamber back as a group of men shouted and pointed at the struggling figure. In the confusion, a crane driver lowered a crane too close to the side of one of the trucks. It smashed against it. Several men yelled and ran for cover as the crate swayed and bashed the truck’s side. In the panic, Graham’s only instinct was to run. He raced along the roof ramp to the one that sloped to the ground and slithered down to the crates. He had some difficulty finding the door as men converged from every direction. He slipped out and sprinted the fifty yards across the compound to the fence, hauled himself to the top and leaped clear, but twisted his ankle as he hit the ground. He felt the painful tear of a ligament as he stumbled on his way through the wood. The compound was now bathed in brilliant light. He heard the station wagon start up as he reached the creek bed. He limped along in a panic and had trouble making out his crude camouflage of the Mercedes. Just as he was yards from it, the station wagon crossed the bridge and skidded to a halt. Graham flung himself flat as two men jumped out of the car and ran along the road. Graham’s heart sank as the car headlights went on. He could see his own shadow on the wall of the creek.

  Two voices bellowed instructions to one of
the men who had stopped about twenty yards from Graham. The man yelled angrily to the other to turn out the lights. The lights were doused. Graham felt he had to do something. He picked up a rock and hurled it high and hard on to the other side of the road. The man turned and ran in the direction of the noise. Graham scrambled to the car, got in and shoved the key in the ignition as the lights on the station wagon went on once more. The Mercedes sprang to life. He put his foot flat on the accelerator, and the car snapped its way out of the camouflage and off along the road. The station wagon gave chase.

  Graham drove recklessly as the other car seemed to be gaining on him. But with a straight flat stretch of about five miles, the Mercedes, flat out, pulled away. After ten minutes the station wagon driver gave up. Graham kept up speed until he reached the outskirts of Vienna a little over an hour later.

  Finding an unmade track, he pulled off the road, stopped the car and slumped over the wheel.

  Seated at his desk, in the Oval Office, the President looked through black-rimmed spectacles at his formidable schedule for the day. With the election looming, he was under tremendous pressure, and it was beginning to show in his appearance. His craggy features had weary fatty bags under the bloodshot blue eyes, and a pasty skin had become apparent over the last few months. The pressure, too, had manifested itself in his manner and temper. This was not helped by the tedious lobbying that had to be done if he were to remain in the White House for another term. He felt more comfortable with the minute-by-minute, day-to-day decision-making, especially in foreign affairs. Yet he seemed to be giving more of his precious seconds to worrying about media coverage, and pressure groups. The bid for political power was a new experience for Rickard. He had won office by fate and chance, not by the nation’s vote.

  Rickard had been selected as a compromise choice by the previous President to be his vice-presidential running mate. Both right and left of the party found the selection acceptable. Rickard’s middle-of-the-road views were so indistinct that no one saw him as a threat. A few months after the inauguration, the President died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage, and Rickard, the son of a poor Ohio tool and die maker, was in the Oval Office. Nothing in his small-town background, or bland, uneventful career—Ohio State University law graduate, assistant district attorney, Ohio State Legislature, state attorney general, and seven years in the Senate—gave a hint of the way Rickard was to develop as President. He quickly found a strength of character few knew he possessed. He was impelled by the office’s awesome tradition and became determined to reach a high standard and a prominent role in history.