“Mr. President, I believe you are correct. We must act. We, the people, must act. Not one man, alone. I believe—I respectfully submit to you, sir—that this is too big an issue, too important, to be resolved by executive fiat. The will of the people must be heard and heeded on an issue of such fundamental importance to the future direction of our republic. I know that with a spirit of comity, sir, working together, we can—we will—find a solution that best serves the interests of the people. I must add, Mr. President, that I believe any effort to act outside the purview of this Congress will be resisted in the strongest possible way.”
“Working together is what I have in mind, Senator, when I asked you in for this little talk. My question to you remains. Will you work with me, Jeb?”
Senator Paxton’s jaw began slowly working as though he were looking for a place to spit and couldn’t find a likely target. He stood up.
“Mr. President, I can’t presume to know the will of the people here and now. But I can tell you, I aim to find out what it is. And when I do, I will be her unflinching champion no matter what path she leads me down or what the danger. If, God willing, that path and your path are the same, Mr. President, then you see before you a tireless ally.
Drummond knew that no more would be achieved with Paxton for the moment. “Thank you, Jeb. I appreciate your candor.”
Rising from his chair, Drummond quickly moved to walk the senator to the office door.
“Jeb, I’ll be asking for a joint session of the Congress to address you all on this matter. Paul will be submitting the request this afternoon.”
“Good day, Mr. President.”
32
When Jeb Paxton returned to his office he sat thinking about his conversation with the president. Finally, he reached for his phone and placed a call to Philip Layland.
“Philip, we need to meet. Your goddam friends at Exxon are going to get fried in the press. Drummond needs an attention-getting victim to weather this storm and Miller and his crowd are going to be the sheep led to the slaughter. I don’t know how he is going to pull this off, but I know Drummond and he won’t let this spin out of his control. We need to figure out quickly whose side we’re on. And I mean quickly. Keep your mouth shut. I’ll fly to you. I’ll have my son fly me in his Cessna. I want as low a profile on my movements as possible. Meet me at the field. You know where.”
When Senator Paxton hung up the phone he began shuffling through papers on his desk. He was looking for that CIA report on the connection between cheap oil and the production of capital. The collapse of the worldwide banking system in the early years of the century due to the collapse of subprime mortgages will look like child’s play. When the realization sets in that cheap oil is what fueled growth in every sector of the marketplaceallowed for a constantly upward growth curve, made it possible to lend more money than was collateralized, and that the era of cheap energy was now past its peak and on a downward slopewhen all this becomes clear, well, Paxton knew a dead hand when he held one. And he meant dead. Catastrophic collapse. He decided not to continue looking for the report.
What he needed instead was a strategy. Layland was an ambitious fool. But a useful ambitious fool with a foot in both doorsthe collapsing era of fossil-fueled finance and the rise of something else. There was always something else. But where was his seat on the train? Maybe he could figure that out by the time he met with Layland. Drummond was a fox. Better not to count him out. Firestorms burn hot, but they also burn fast. Then they’re over. Drummond has always demonstrated sobering survival skills to his enemies. Best be very careful right now, he thought. And Layland was expendable, just not wrung dry yet.
33
There was plenty of time to consider his goals for this meeting. Maybe encounter would be a better word for it, Talbot thought. There was going to be a party at the Kenyan embassy tomorrow night. That would work very well, providing an opportunity for him to meet with Morgan with no fuss or bother with schedules and timetables and protocol officers and the whole stinking mess every time something official happens. It was just a party. Doing our duty by the diplomatic community.
He had called Morgan earlier and it was a pretty clear message Talbot gave him. Be there, ol’ buddy. Meanwhile he put Leach’s name on the hot list at CIA and passed along to the NSA his interest in this man’s foreign activities, if there were any. Obviously, based on what Amanda Brock had told him, he needed to get up to speed on this joker.
The next evening, Talbot and his wife arrived at the Kenyan embassy fashionably late at 9:30. It was a typical crowd at a typical third-world embassy ballroom, overly ornate, pretentious to the extreme. But then it was not really “hard duty” and he kept a sensible perspective on what to apply the word “onerous.”
The band was playing. The hors d’oeuvres were flowing along with the champagne. The women wore their $9000 gowns from Neiman Marcus (several to be returned the next daythe Neiman Marcus “free rental and gown service”). The servers wore colorful tribal costumes and the ambassador mingled with the guests smoothly as any ambassador from a more prominent country might have done.
Talbot excused himself from his wife who was quite used to her role at these events. She was to arrive with him and leave with him. In between, her husband had sometimes mingling and sometimes serious work to do. She never knew which was which or when. And as long as she got to wear her Oscar de la Renta gowns and Prada shoes, she didn’t really care.
Talbot scanned the crowded floor when he was surprised to see James Marshall among the revelers. Talbot did not want Marshall making a possible connection between him and General Slaider. He had hoped for a totally innocent venue and meeting with the general. Newsmen are always so suspicious and so ready to draw unwarranted conclusions. Talbot continued to circulate when, at about ten o’clock, he saw General Slaider arrive alone. As he turned to look for a drink he was face to face with James Marshall.
“Ah, Mr. Marshall, so good to see you, though I’m a little surprised to find you at a Kenyan embassy party.”
“Funny you should say that, Director Talbot. I was thinking the same thing about you. But, anyway, it’s a pleasure to see you as well. My boss thought it would be good for me to do a little hobnobbing. And, you know, no reporter ever turned down the chance for free drinks.”
“I believe, Mr. Marshall, that you and I are similarly motivated. I’m off now to find one of those free drinks. A pleasure, once again.” Talbot had spotted Slaider moving toward the bar at the end of the ballroom and slowly made his way there. He made a point to stop and speak briefly with several men and, with gallant flourishes, several of the women on his path to the bar. He ordered a double scotch, single malt, fifteen-year-old, and then turned to General Slaider who was lingering near the bar.
In a quiet and friendly conversational tone with a hint of surprise, he addressed Slaider.
“Well, Morgan, old boy, how nice to see you here among all us other public servants. Drinking at the trough, so to speak. Everything is well with Marion, I trust?”
“Hello, Roger. Thank you for asking. Marion is doing better . . . just not up to this event tonight.”
“You be sure to send her my love and my best wishes, won’t you, Roger?”
“Thank you again. I will indeed.” Slaider hesitated, scanning the crowd. Then he said to Talbot in a very low voice, “Where?”
“I see you’re a bourbon man tonight, Morgan. Me, I’m pretty loyal. Bourbon. Good aged bourbon works for me every time. You know, Morgan, a man in my profession needs to be careful about intoxicating beverages. But I’m a safe drunk. After one bourbon I’m mellow and peaceful as a baby suckin’ on it’s momma’s tit. After two I can dance to any music. And after three, well, after three I fall asleep, so I never get into any trouble. At least over alcohol.”
Slaider pretended to be amused, but under his breath asked again, “Where?”
Talbot slapped Slaider on the shoulder preparatory to moving away and quietly said, �
��library, second floor.” Slaider moved in a kind of random walk pattern to the elevator in the lobby of the embassy. Talbot moved, also cautiously and without obvious purpose toward the stairs leading to the second floor. From the corner of the room James Marshall noted the movements of the two men. Slowly he moved toward the ballroom entrance and toward the stairway.
When Marshall reached the stairway he could also see the elevator and noted it had stopped on the second floor. Still carrying a little plate with hors d’oeuvres and a glass of white wine he climbed the stairs affecting the appearance of a tourist touring the building, looking at the decorations along the wall of the stairs, at the chandelier in the entranceway below, pausing to stroke the carving of the deeply sculpted banister, bending to examine it more closely, comparing it to one he had seen in Indonesia once. Finally, when he reached the second level he looked each way trying to decide which direction to take when he heard a door close on his right. He slowly walked to the door, past it, returned, noting by the brass plaque it was the door to a library.
Marshall was about to leave, deciding he had used up his annual supply of luck already, when he heard raised voices coming from inside the room. He could not make out what they were saying so he pressed his ear against the door. Still he could not make out the words. He briefly thought of downing the last of his wine and pressing the glass against the door, but footsteps coming up the stairs persuaded him to move along the corridor as if in search of something.
As he moved along the corridor he heard a voice call out just loud enough so that he would hear it, “Mr. Marshall.” Marshall stopped and turned toward the voice. “Yes?” he said to the approaching figure.
“I think we need to speak,” the man said. He was tall and dressed in a tuxedo and looked like any of the well-groomed, well-decked-out junior-crowd-with-ambition that filled Washington. Marshall thought perhaps the man wanted to offer him a story idea since he obviously knew who he was.
“Do I know you?” Marshall asked. “For a reporter, I’m terrible with names. I apologize if we’ve met before.”
“FBI Special Agent London, sir. And we haven’t metformally that is. Let’s just keep walking to the end of the corridor. We can talk in one of the offices. Everyone, well, almost everyone is downstairs.”
Marshall moved along the corridor as instructed, the special agent walking at his side. At the end of the corridor London turned the handle of an office door and they walked inside. He held the door for Marshall to enter. Once inside, and the door was closed again. The two men faced each other, London’s back to the door. “May I ask, Mr. Marshall what your interest is in General Slaider and Director Talbot?”
Marshall tried to “put on a stupid face.” Feigning a lack of understanding, he said, “What do you mean my interest in Slaider and Talbot? I don’t have any particular interest in them.”
“Mr. Marshall, that won’t do. I saw you follow Director Talbot and I watched you working hard to seem as if you were not following him up the stairs.”
“Special Agent Londoneasy name to remember. Special Agent London, you are mistaken. I am what you see before you: a simple reporter ogling the decorations and architecture of our Kenyan friends. What makes you think I have a special interest in these two men, in particular?”
Special Agent London looked steadily at James Marshall. Finally, he said “Nothing. My mistake, sir. But Mr. Marshall, please in the future be very careful whom you decide not to take a special interest in.” He turned and opened the door gesturing to Marshall he was free to go.
As Marshall returned to the party downstairs he could feel a tingling in his flesh at the back of his neck. “What the hell was that all about?” he asked himself.
34
To Amanda Brock, the world she relished, her professional life, had always been like walking on burning coals. It looked impossible, yet people did it. So it must be possible. She remembered that from her eleventh-grade physics teacher: “If it happens, it must be possible.” A useful law of life she decided then at sixteen years old and it served her well in her chosen career. She remembered another law of life, but this time not so positive. She learned it on her summer job just before going to college. United Parcel Service on Tenth Avenue in Manhattan.
Every week she had to write a progress report on her activities in the accounting department. She was an accounting major in high school and was going to study forensic accounting in college. Based on these credentials she was given a job to cover for the group supervisor while he was on summer vacation. It seems that scheduling vacations had not been done well that year and the second and third in seniority in the group were all on vacation as well so it was up to her to hold the fort for three weeks at least and probably for the whole summer.
So it was part of her responsibility to write a weekly progress report. It was then that she learned the true definition of “progress.” It was not the meaning she expected, the steady, slow achieving of a worthy goal. Instead, progress on the job was defined as whatever happened. It need not be perfect or even a goal of the company. It need not even be a successful step forward. It need not be, in other words, what we would normally think of as progress, but rather simply quick words implying action but without direction or purpose. Action substituted for progress. It was then that Amanda Brock fully began to appreciate the importance and general acceptance of bullshit in the world.
She also learned the importance of “who you know,” versus “what you know.” It was how she got the job with UPS in the first place. Amanda saw an ad in the Long Island Press that United Parcel Service was hiring. She remembered her dad had a friend who worked for UPS so she called him to find out what kind of openings there were. Her dad’s friend, Kenny McManis, did not know but he said it was worth going to the interview location to see what was going on.
When Amanda got off the subway a couple of blocks from the advertised location she could see already that there was a problem. A few blocks ahead she could see a huge line of people waiting quietly to enter the building. The line extended the length of one block and partly onto another. With a sigh Amanda got on the end of the line. Three hours later she was invited in to meet with a company representative.
After some initial perfunctory pleasantries, the man said to her that he was terribly sorry, but the few jobs that were available had already been filled earlier in the day. If she wanted him to, he said, he would keep her resume on file for future reference if something opened up.
What happened next was one of those magic moments when it is better to be lucky than smart. In spite of the huge line of disappointed people before her; in spite of being told that all positions had been filled; in spite of the certain knowledge that she had wasted her time completely, she said “Gee, I’m surprised. A friend of mine, Kenny McManis, works for UPS and he said he was sure they could find something for me to do for the summer.”
The company representative stopped drumming his fingers. “Kenny McManis you say?”
“Yes,” Amanda answered. “He was sure you would have something.”
The company representative picked up the telephone and made a call. He turned his back on Amanda and she was not able to hear the conversation.
“Ms. Brock, what would you say to something in the shipping department? It’s just for the summer of course but we have a need just now because of some summer vacations. Could you begin tomorrow?”
Amanda never found out exactly what Kenny’s position was at UPS but evidently it was enough to land her that summer job. It’s not always what you know, but sometimes, maybe often, who you know. She never forgot that lesson either.
By the time Amanda finished her undergraduate work at New York University, she decided to stay on there and study law. She graduated fifth in her class, passed the New York Bar Exam the first time and could choose from several lucrative job offers in Manhattan, including three with Wall Street firms. It was not to be.
Amanda’s father had been a modest investor in
the stock market until the last year of Amanda’s course of study at the NYU law school. Then he was solicited heavily by his broker to invest in an oil and mining fund that “could not lose” and had a strong history of returns over several years. He didn’t let small investors in on everything he knew, his broker said, but since he had been with him for so long he just felt bad about not letting him in on this deal. Amanda’s father had no reason to doubt his broker’s sincerity and he had been trustworthy and helpful all these years. So he sold out of all his investments and taking his broker’s advice placed all his money in the heavily recommended fund. The fund price per share was rising rapidly but he still got in early enough to anticipate a very good percentage return on his investment. He felt lucky and smart and daring all at once.
Until the bubble broke. Until it was discovered that the fund manager had sold out of his diversified positions and taken almost all the fund resources and placed them in a wildcat drilling company with leases on offshore property in Indonesia that promised to be as big a find as the oil in the North Slope of Alaska. Until it was discovered that there was no oil, that the geology reports were a fraud, that the drilling company was broke, that the leases were worthless. Amanda’s father lost everything he had invested, which was most of his life’s savings. His broker was reprimanded for not following company protocols for recommendations and given three days unpaid suspension; the fund manager was fired and quickly hired by a rival company; and the drilling company declared bankruptcy after all its principal officers gave themselves bonuses of between fifty thousand and five hundred thousand dollars. That’s when Amanda decided she would reject all the job offers she had received and go to work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, for the FBI.
She was smart, articulate, presentable rather than attractive, politically savvy, and she was driven. In appearance, she was average in every way. Average height, average build, hair color a sandy brown. Only her hazel eyes were striking. When she focused her attention she would reflexively raise her eyebrows and widen her eyelids and her eyes were large and vivid and the irises were almost entirely visible.
On Deception Watch Page 15