On Deception Watch

by David H Spielberg

  “First let me ask you, Ranjit, you are well, I trust?”

  “Under the circumstances, I am quite well, Mr. Secretary, though I am not accustomed to having diplomatic conversations accompanied by hostile military escorts.”

  “Not hostile! Well-instructed, let’s say. I’m afraid there isn’t much we can do about that for the time being. But it will change. Just be patient, Ranjit. Although I suspect the member states are experiencing quite some degree of anxiety just about now.”

  “I should think that anxiety would be rather understating the case, if I might say so, Mr. Secretary. May I presume that you are about to offer me an explanation of these current events. Are you proposing to ‘cut me in?’ Is that the correct phrase used by American gangsters?”

  “Very undiplomatic of you, Ranjit, but I forgive you, considering the strain you are working under. No, I will not be doing that. The pleasure of ‘cutting you in,’ as you put it, will be left to General Slaider. Really, a quite extraordinary man. He’s given diplomacy a whole new meaning for me. But I’m intelligent enough, Ranjit, that once I see a good thing, I know how to proceed, how to set up the supporting infrastructure, establish the protocols, make it work in the world community. Frankly, I could do it alone. But that’s the beauty of General Slaider’s plan, of his vision. To be enduring, the vision must be institutionalized. It can’t just be dependent on the energy of one man. You will help us do that.”

  “I am to have no choice then? What kind of participation will you expect of me under those circumstances, Mr. Secretary? Is the UN to be held hostage, the just condemnation of the world community to be defied?”

  “Let’s not argue, Ranjit. I’m sure you will see everything in a different light after you talk with General Slaider. Actually, he’s waiting for you right now. Captain Nicholson will take you to him immediately. We’ll talk again after your meeting with the general.”

  “But first, Mr. Secretary, may I be assured of the safety of those in the diplomatic service not located on the UN grounds?”

  “Of course, of course, Ranjit. As we speak, our liaison officer with the UN is compiling a complete property and address index where guards will be posted to ensure the safety of both people and property. Well, really, it’s a kind of protective arrangement.”

  “I must admit, Mr. Secretary, your candor is very surprising, perhaps shocking. It only leads me to conclude that you have compelling reasons for your country’s actions, reasons that are simply not known to me as yet.”

  “Exactly. Exactly! General Slaider is waiting. Keep an open mind, Ranjit. I know you are famous for that. This may be your greatest test. Such a pity it would be to waste a good crisis.”

  The screen went blank and Captain Nicholson indicated to Lal to follow him to the waiting limousine. After a short drive to the downtown area of Manhattan, they arrived at the New York Federal Reserve building. More heavy military equipment, including two tanks, was visible in the street, along with numerous armed soldiers. Captain Nicholson escorted him through the checkpoint and into the building. Through corridors, doorways, stairs and elevators, he made his way five stories below the street level.

  General Slaider was standing in front of a huge revolving vault door. He wore a sidearm. Military police with submachine guns were conspicuously posted in the area.

  “Welcome, Mr. Secretary-General. Won’t you please sit down?”

  A table with two armchairs on either side was provided in the center of the open space before the vault door. Lal sat in one chair and the general sat in the other. The door through which Lal entered the area was closed. An unarmed orderly and an armed sentry stood quietly beside the door.

  “We may be here for a while, Mr. Secretary-General. We might as well get comfortable. Would you like some tea? Perhaps I should order some breakfast. You probably didn’t have time to eat this morning. It’s been a hell of a day already, hasn’t it? Would you like some sweet rolls and tea?”

  “Thank you, General. Yes, tea and sweet rolls would be most satisfactory.”

  The general motioned to the orderly and quickly gave him instructions. The moments that passed while the orderly was executing the general’s orders were spent in idle conversation regarding the history of the building they were in and its architecture. It was a matter that General Slaider seemed pleased to convey to Ranjit Lal.

  When the orderly returned, another officer accompanied him, who carried a silver tray. Cloth napkins and china plates were laid out along with silverware, a milk pitcher, a supply of sliced lemons, the tea and the rolls. Both men helped themselves in silence. After taking several sips of tea and a small bite of his roll, General Slaider began.

  “So, Mr. Secretary-General, why have I brought you here today?” Slaider leaned back in his chair and brushed his fingers lightly through his hair. “I know it seems to you that this has been merely a fortuitous meeting. I can assure you, however, that that is not the case. Of the places I could be this morning, should be this morning, none is more important than my meeting with you here. The principal reason that I am in New York today is to meet with you. How that was to be arranged is of no matter and this is as good as any.”

  Slaider paused for another bite of his sweet roll. “I’ve given quite a bit of thought to this conversation, Mr. Secretary-General. We don’t really know each other, you and I, for all that we are both public figures. We will have to proceed on intuition. As a military man I normally look for firmer ground. But it will have to do.”

  Lal lifted his teacup to his lips and took a small sip of the hot brew without taking his eyes from General Slaider.

  “First, so that you will understand the gravity of what I am about to tell you, I must acknowledge a few things to you. They will shock you, but it’s absolutely necessary that we understand each other and that you not misjudge my conviction. Vice President Latimer is largely correct in all his allegations against me. I am responsible for the attack on President Drummond. I am responsible for the disappearance of so many and in some cases death of America’s important political and judicial leaders and for the bombings and destruction, for the attacks on the United Nations and its diplomats, for the—how else can I say it?—phony Arab conspiracy, for the killings and the chaos. I do not regret that this has led to warfare between the military services of the United States to the point of international confrontation and the use of tactical nuclear weapons. No, I don’t regret this. I planned for these things to happen, Mr. Secretary-General. They are my doing. Latimer is essentially correct in his charges and accusations. And I mostly fabricated the evidence of conspiracy and treason against him.”

  Involuntarily, Lal let his cup drop noisily to the saucer. His head twisted back and forth as if trying to deny the meaning of the words he was hearing. He rose from his chair as if stricken, his eyes wide, his head turning now about the room, searching for a way out of this nightmare that suddenly was enveloping him. After a few seconds he sank back into his chair, unprepared for such a revelation and unprepared for a response. “My god,” was all he could manage while his mind raced merely to assimilate what he had just heard—analysis was beyond him at the moment.

  ‘‘The Air Force rebellion will be allowed to continue,” Slaider said. “I need it to continue to justify my control over the media. I now pretty much control where journalists can go and who they talk with. I pretty much control which stations can broadcast and which programs on those stations can broadcast. So in the end, his little rebellion will have only served my purposes. General Stoner is a good man and he knows he cannot win. He won’t keep up with me in my escalation of the stakes. He will blink first, Mr. Secretary-General.

  “Right now he’s probably trying to decide how long he can continue his mutiny before it collapses completely and whether he should surrender to me personally or simply kill himself when it does. As for Latimer, he is inconsequential. What he does or says now or in the future will mean nothing; will have no effect on the course of major events.” He
leaned forward toward Lal, who shrank back from his gaze. “And the current epoch of the United Nations, Mr. Secretary-General, I am afraid I must inform you, is now over.”

  Lal’s strength failed him and he fell forward, his head enveloped by his clutching hands thudded to the table. “No, no, this is not possible. No, no, no.” He muttered in a daze, now shaking his head back and forth more and more desperately. “No, no, no . . . ”

  “These are not the ravings of a would-be Napoleon, Mr. Secretary-General, as you must now be imagining. But even so, believe me delusional or not, you must consider every word I say as the absolute truth of what I have done, what I am capable of still doing, and what I will do.”

  Slaider leaned back once again in his chair.

  “There will be no negotiating here today, Mr. Secretary-General. I am going to tell you what I will be doing. You can choose to take advantage of the opportunity my actions create for you or you can be a silent witness to the destruction I will bring to those who oppose me. God help you if I judged you wrong.” General Slaider fell silent.

  Lal could not assimilate what he was hearing. He was crushed beyond anything he believed capable. His entire life’s work, his faith in rational self-interest, his already-shaken dream of a maturing sense of cooperation among nations, all lay at his feet as so much rubble if this man before him was to be believed. And Lal felt—knew—that Slaider was to be believed. A sudden wave of panic rushed over him. What did Slaider want from him? It was too much. Too horrible. Events could become just too large for anyone to understand or manage. It was not his fault. He had no idea. There had been no indication.

  Waves of shadowy horror swept over him, recollections of photos of the nightmare of Nazi atrocities and the destruction unleashed by global warfare—recollections of his own visits to scenes of terrorist and military destruction in Ireland, Burma, the former Soviet republics, South America, the Middle East. The maimed and broken, the burned and tortured, the dead and the dying. Every recollected scene now flashed through his mind as an accusation, slicing into him, opening a new wound, tearing his flesh apart with the justice of their condemnation and the depth of his failure. It was beyond his abilities, yet he had claimed the strength to challenge devils. And now the devils had won. In his arrogance, he had toyed with the ancient beasts, thinking himself their equal. Now he saw how inadequate he had been. He was terrified that somehow he himself had unleashed this plague upon the world by his own inadequacies. There was no one to whom he could turn and admit such fears. He was alone, broken, hopelessly without resources in the face of this bold and naked power. He could not move or respond. Think. Think, he commanded himself.

  General Slaider watched Lal intently, trying to penetrate the visible destruction his words had wrought in order to find where the inner man lay. Lal needed time, he realized. He had purposely held nothing back to see how strong this man was. As he watched Lal, he wondered if he had judged wrongly. Time would tell, he decided. He sat and waited for Lal to compose himself.

  Lal’s thoughts slowly began to refocus. He recalled the words of Secretary of State Alexander Llewellyn talking about a new world order. Llewellyn was a respected internationalist. What could this man, this madman, Slaider, have said to convince a person of stature such as Alexander Llewellyn to work on his behalf? His mind began to struggle with the incongruence of Llewellyn’s words to him earlier and those of General Slaider just a few seconds ago. The incongruence began to grow, to erupt like a little flower poking through the crack in a field of barren rock. It offered hope. Slowly he raised his head, his brain once more searching for options, analyzing risks. He would need to come at the problem from the side.

  “Why are we here? Here, in this building? Why are we meeting here?” he asked the general.

  Slaider smiled. This was a good question. A good sign.

  “Fuel for my chaos machine. Undoubtedly you are aware that in the vault behind my back is stored approximately one half of the world’s gold supply—fifteen thousand tons, five-hundred-and-fifty thousand gold bars valued conservatively at one trillion dollars. I have confiscated it. It is now under my control as a security deposit for the US military installations coming under attack or siege worldwide. And yet, I will provoke those governments sorely so that the siege will continue, the conflict will continue and my confiscation will continue.”

  Slaider waved his hand as if to dismiss the confiscation as a mere technicality. “Llewellyn will deal with that. He will prolong the debate. He will stonewall, obfuscate, threaten. Whatever it takes to scare the holy hell out of every country on earth that their precious gold supply could quite possibly be gone. Plus, just think what it will do to world financial markets. Currency agreements will collapse. International trade will collapse. And it’s so simple. Who would have ever thought such a thing possible in America?”

  “But why, General Slaider, in the name of whatever god you fear, why?”

  “For the New World Order, Mr. Secretary-General, as you will shortly see.”

  “What do you expect of me? How is it possible that you could think I would be able to work with you toward any goal whatsoever after what you have just admitted to me? Whatever you expect of the United Nations, it is quite impossible now for me to work with you. Indeed, I may be risking my life in stating the obvious, but if I ever leave this room I will denounce you to the world.”

  Slaider slouched in his chair, content that they had reached this point so quickly. “Hmm . . . we’ll see what you will do if you leave this room. Here is what I expect. I expect the United Nations to leave American soil. I expect it to do that almost immediately. Within seventy-two hours any United Nations diplomats still in America will be arrested and deported to his home country. In fact, you will have to do nothing in this regard, Mr. Secretary-General. I will take care of all the arrangements for any country that fails to heed this order. The chattel property of the United Nations will be transferred later to whatever location is chosen for the new site. The real property of the United Nations grounds will revert to the Rockefeller Foundation from whence it came.”

  “But General, the treaties?”

  “Fuck the treaties, Mr. Secretary-General. What will you do to me? What can you do? That is the point. That is entirely my point.”

  Lal struggled to grasp the meaning of Slaider’s words, to capture the essence of his issues, but it was still impossible.

  “General Slaider, it is clear that you have some grand scheme in mind and that this is all necessary to advance it, but I must tell you, though I am an open-minded person, and thought to be moderately intelligent, I don’t understand what you are saying to me, beyond the horror and the defiance. What precisely are you attempting to accomplish? The world will turn against you. America will turn against you. And if not, America will be isolated by the world. We, the international community, may need time to regroup, to reestablish ourselves at a new location if that must be, but it will happen and you will be isolated and you will fail. Where can this all be going, General Slaider, except to oblivion for you and great hardship, death, and disaster for possibly millions of innocent people?”

  “No, Mr. Secretary-General, you misjudge the world, you misjudge your resources, and you misjudge my determination. But it is largely my fault that you misjudge. Let me start again, since I seem to be making myself cryptic rather than concise.”

  Slaider lifted his tea to his lips and took a long sip of the now-tepid liquid.

  “This may take some time, Ranjit. Let me freshen your cup.

  Slaider reached for the teapot and poured for himself and Lal. After another brief sip he continued.

  “Following the end of World War II, America was in a preeminent position in the world. But we were not prepared to deal with the position of authority that we had achieved and we squandered the opportunity that this position of power provided to us. From our mountaintop of unassailable strength, we did the most amazing thing. Something that no other country on earth would do or
has done. We voluntarily limited our options as a nation, voluntarily abdicated our right to act entirely in our own self-interest, voluntarily transferred a portion of our sovereign rights as a nation . . . to an ideal, to a dream that we wanted to be real but was not. In short, to the idea of the United Nations. Not the actual United Nations. No. But to the United Nations that we wanted to believe existed. A world body of nations cooperating for the betterment of the whole world, dedicated to rational and legal action, committed to cooperation in order to defeat aggression, conflict, hardship and disease. Except that’s not the way it worked out.

  “We agreed to follow the rules. We paid for the bat and ball and uniforms. Let anyone play who wanted to play. Made no value judgments. Tolerated ingratitude, ridicule, even obloquy from those we fed and clothed—even to our own detriment—because we were blinded by the ideal and refused to see the reality.

  “But what has been the reality, Mr. Secretary-General?”

  Lal said nothing.

  “The United Nations is a failure, Mr. Secretary-General. You know it. I know it. The rest of the world doesn’t really care, because it really makes no demands on them that they are unwilling to agree to. They may pay their paltry dues or not. They may abide by World Court decisions or not. They may abide by UN resolutions or not. They find ready partners among the international community of thieves and cutthroats suddenly cloaked in the mantle of respectability because their soldiers have allowed them to occupy a seat of government—partners willing to help them thwart any feeble precedent for enforcement by the Security Council.

  “The General Assembly has become a congress of mafia families, not governments for the protection and benefit of their people.

  “Every nation on earth feels free, in the furtherance of their own rapacious or fanatical self-interest, to defy the United Nations because the reality is so keenly understood by them. Only the United States feels compelled to abide by resolutions against its own interests, against its own friends, against its own philosophy or way of life. And not because we too keenly sense the reality. No. It is because we keenly sense the ideal. For us the ideal is real. Our view is clouded by our vision. You understand the different meanings of the two words, Mr. Secretary-General? It is not the first time in history a nation was lost or almost lost because the vision obscured the view.