The Lesser Evil

by Jim Magwood

  Again, Henry was silent. After a long silence, he asked,

  “If I was to suggest something, would I be protected from exposure? Would anyone ever know…?”

  “Mr. Baxter, we are here to bring down the evil in the world, not to cause injury to those trying to do the same. If you wanted to step out and help begin the healing of the world, why should you be punished for that? If the world citizens all, and I know that is a very large word—all—if the people all began to cause evil to be put down and good things to grow, why should anyone be allowed to stop that uprising or to punish good people because they want to make things better?

  “What were you going to suggest, Mr. Baxter?”

  For a while, Henry couldn’t bring himself to speak. But, his mind and his heart wouldn’t let him be silent. So, he finally said, “If I knew of someone…who had broken his trust in office…who had used his position to gain wealth and power for himself by walking on…by lying to the people who had trusted him…”

  “I gather you are speaking of Senator Walter Korman?”

  Again, Henry was silent. Then, in almost a whisper, he replied, “Yes.”

  “What would you suggest, Mr. Baxter?”

  Again, silence. Then, slowly, “I have a ton of material about him, but if I try to bring it out, I’m probably going to be in real hot water. Even the government isn’t going to want this to come out, not to mention the criminals he’s tied to. The mob and so on. How would you…?”

  “Do you want him silenced forever, Mr. Baxter? Dead?”

  Shocked, Henry blurted, “No, no! That’s not what…”

  “Thank you, Mr. Baxter, because that we would not do.

  That would be as wrong as what Korman and the other evil forces are doing. But, yes, he could very easily, from our point of view, be stopped.”

  “What…I mean, how…?”

  “You said you have the material you’ve gathered against Korman. Why not just publish that material, Mr. Baxter? Get it into the hands of one of the publishing contacts you have and let the material speak for itself against him?”

  “Yeah, but I’ve made some inquiries into that, and the stuff wouldn’t get through all the lawyers and power brokers and…”

  “We have the ability to bypass those channels and blocks, Mr. Baxter.”

  “But, what…how…?”

  “Mr. Baxter, let me suggest a trial. Let’s work together on this and see if you are satisfied with the result. If I were to send a courier to you, would you be willing to make copies of your materials, even some write-ups you may have begun, and let us show you how we can handle that material? I can assure you, you would not have any exposure at all. No one would know it came from you. Would you be willing to try that, Mr.

  Baxter?”

  Henry started to say, “The Story,” then stopped and thought, But, if I could get Korman stopped, that would be only one story, and the benefits…”

  “Would the courier be secure…?”

  “He would be from us, Mr. Baxter. He would be very secure. You would not need to worry. What time would you want him at your office?”

  Again, Henry was silent, then responded in barely a whisper, “Tomorrow at about three?”

  “That will be good, Mr. Baxter. You have the materials ready for pickup tomorrow at three, and then see what we can do to help you, and others, take back control of your lives.”

  “But…”

  “Believe me, Mr. Baxter, this is the right thing to do. If everyone would reach out and do something to stop the criminal element around them, the world would quickly be a much better place. Please, be assured, Mr. Baxter, you have done the right thing. You will not regret your decision.”

  CHAPTER 51

  One week later, Henry was stunned when he saw more than twenty major world-wide newspapers, in every market where Senator Walter Korman had any dealings, reporting almost every sin Korman had been involved in during his entire public career. Original documents were published; photos of his contacts with known criminals; copies of bank records; names; places; amounts. Within days, every television or radio broadcast was talking about the stories. Interviews were conducted with people in the know. Pointed questions were asked, most of them denied, but all of them adding to the furor.

  After a very few first contacts that caught him unawares, Senator Korman was simply absent. No one could reach him; his offices were totally silent. Phones were not answered; visitors were turned away from anyplace he might have been.

  No excuses were given; simply, “He’s not here. He’s not available.”

  People he had been associated with were not available for comment. Many of them, like him, were simply absent. Rumors began to spread that certain acquaintances he had dealt with who had now been exposed by the same documents that turned Korman inside out were “looking” for him, and that it was likely a very good thing that he was not found. As time went by, other rumors spread that he had been found by those acquaintances, and that was why he had not been heard from.

  Baxter sat in awe; shocked; unbelieving. And, at first, fearful. Then, it finally started to dawn on him how easy it had been to put a stop to someone that needed stopping. As he thought about it more, a peace, a hope, began to fill him. If he could cause this to happen—if it was possible to stop evil this way—if goodness could really be brought back into the world… If people could have their lives back and could work toward futures they really deserved, wasn’t this the way it should be?

  He thought about the old maxim about two wrongs not equaling a right, but after thinking it through, realized this was different. The people had been disallowed of their right to make things better, to control evil. They had the right to have good lives; lives free from the pressures of evil forces they couldn’t control. To be able to reach out and take control of their own lives was a good thing, something that would ultimately expand and bring back decency and order in the world.

  This was something that needed to be done.

  A little smile crossed his face as he looked at the news reports again, and thought, Maybe. Maybe.

  CHAPTER 52

  “So, you did come up with something. I’m anxious to hear what you have in mind.”

  The gray-haired man replied, “Yes, and I think it might be very advantageous for moving our plan along.” The other man was silent, so he continued. “I have been very carefully influencing some people to take actions that will seemingly continue the trend that has been started, but which will ultimately rebound and disrupt those trends. I’ve already put some ideas into action and the results have been even better than I expected.”

  “Give me an example.”

  “Do you remember several mission groups that received money purportedly from that vigilante force a couple of months ago? They were all involved in helping the less fortunate of societies around the world?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Well, after they had received the funds, there were several reports fairly applauding the missions, even after it was leaked where the funds came from.”

  The other man chuckled. “I think I know where this is going. You?”

  “Yes, I interrupted the party. I was able to put certain bugs in the ears of certain people who decided the gifts were inappropriate. They, in turn, were enticed into notifying their news organizations—letters to the editors and so on—and demanding that investigations into the organizations be made.

  That escalated until various authorities were dragged into the affair and were forced to make their presence known. Ultimately, if you remember, most of the organizations that received the gifts came under fire by citizens and authorities filing legal actions, and most of them ended by closing their doors, absconding with the funds, or, in general, concluding their activities looking very poorly in the public eye.”

  “So, the grand experiment of that group helping some supposedly good organizations with the funds taken from the people and companies they closed down came out with the public fig
hting against the very system that was supposed to be helping them. Very ingenious.” He actually laughed out loud this time. “And where does this go now?”

  “I’ve been able to be influential in a few other cases already. Stirring pots and turning a few minds against the so-called good actions and having them begin to make more demands on their authorities to close down the vigilante group.

  In addition, I’ve been able to get some private groups to take up arms themselves, so to speak, and conduct their own vigilante actions. More confusion for the pot. And, enough of the actions are taking place that they are beginning to get out of hand and cause more chaos and, in some cases, injuries against innocent parties. I could be more direct in getting some of these things to happen, but they are swelling on their own now and are looking like the citizens are rising up on their own. I think I’ll just back off for now and see if it will continue.”

  “Excellent. I agree completely. If we can promote this type of action without being seen ourselves, or being suspected, we will gain the upper hand without raising alarms.

  Excellent decision and planning. I commend you.”

  “Thank you. I did think it worked out well.”

  “Do you have anything else specific in mind?”

  “No. I believe I’ll just hang back and watch for a while.

  There may be some openings come up that I feel will be very beneficial, and I’ll get involved. But, I think a wave has begun and we should just let it run for a while.”

  “That sounds like a good idea. Let me know if you need anything, or if I need to get involved.”

  “I will. Good night for now.”

  “Good night.”

  CHAPTER 53

  Roger and Jacob had been huddled in Roger’s Vancouver basement computer center for most of two days trying to find leads to the vigilante group. So far, nothing had panned out.

  The group was buried well, and Internet messages had gone through too many cutouts to be traced by normal means.

  Roger was about to go much deeper with a program he had developed recently. He called it Tracer and it actually was very simple. It began as basically a piece of regular e-mail with a nonsensical message in case anyone actually tried to read it. He would send the e-mail to unknown, untraceable addresses—ones that went through cutouts or came from re-mailers, a company that received e-mails at its own address and then sent them on to the ultimate addresses. Any traces then stopped at the re-mailer and the thread was lost. However, when Roger’s e-mail went through the re-mailer and was received at the real senders address, the hidden program in it would then record the actual address, send a message back to Roger, and finally erase itself after thirty days. He would have a record of the exact Internet address the e-mail had come from.

  The program was also set to copy itself to any messages sent from the unknown computer to any other addresses, and when received at the new computers, send another message back to Roger. That way, anyone the unknown computer contacted would also be recorded and could be researched, perhaps uncovering other members of the vigilante group in this case. As the program was basically a very simple one-use system, and did not present itself in any way that would be picked up as malicious, there was almost no way that any kind of virus program would catch it in time to do anything to stop the action.

  He would then be able to snoop into the server companies that supported the addresses and get any information the senders had given them for billing or contact purposes. It would be an easy chore to use that information to go into other databases for names, addresses and so on. The only things that could cause the system to fail were accounts that had been closed before a coded message could get to them or ones that were only used irregularly. If the unknown computer received Roger’s message, the program would work. It was that simple.

  With the message sent to each of the suspicious addresses, the only thing to do on that front was wait.

  Jacob was involved in mapping every incident that had taken place, and any locations that could be pinpointed from a name or something, and plotting them on a world map. They were hoping to perhaps see some kind of pattern or triangulation that might give them a start.

  Roger began putting the finishing touches on sorting every bit of data that had come from his earlier searches—

  names, phone numbers, events, dates—with all the possible cross-links between them. Keying up a name in the database would then enable every bit of data it might link with to also be seen and pulled up. The database being created was massive, and he was actually running it through the system at his company office downtown. His home system, as large as it was, would take forever to sort through all the material . I knew I should have gotten a CRAY, he chuckled. Then he considered the cost and chuckled again. Not in my lifetime.

  Late that night, the two men decided to call it quits for some sleep. When they had been involved in investigating the group from Corvalle a couple of years before, they spent many a night working around the clock, and it looked like they were at it again. Part of the work was exciting; searching, plotting, loving the use of the computers. But, part of the work was exhausting; racking their brains to find some kind of leads, jumping from search to database to search and back again, losing threads and trying to find them again. They took short naps between projects, but usually couldn’t stay sleeping. The search kept waking them and drawing them back.

  Morning came too soon for the rest they really needed, but both men had wakened with the chase goading them, had grabbed coffee and were back on the computers.

  “Jacob, what are we looking for? Do you know anything at all about this group?”

  “No, really I don’t. Nothing but what has come out in the news. All I know is that several governments are becoming concerned that this is going to get out of hand, if it hasn’t already, and they want the activities stopped.”

  “What about the supposedly good things they’re doing?

  Putting a crimp in some of the criminal actions around the world? Are the governments willing to allow the criminals to start over again if these vigilantes are stopped?”

  “I can’t answer that. There are so many conflicting interests in this that we don’t really know who is trying to do some good things and who isn’t. I…”

  “Whoa.” Roger jumped up and bounced in his chair. “I just got a hit on something here. What’s going on? There’s a lot of data coming together here, but I can’t see what it’s about yet.”

  “Any names or places or anything we know?”

  “I don’t know. The system seems to have gone back into several news reports—but this is strange. They seem to go back many years. I’m seeing dates of the 1980’s; articles about weapons scrapping programs; a factory called Raduga or something in Russia; something here about Ronald Reagan, and Gorbachev…”

  “Wait. Go back. What did you say about Raduga?”

  “Uhmm…hold on. Let me find that. It’s not all downloaded yet…yeah, here it is. Something about a factory in Russia that made rockets and other things. What are you looking for?"

  “Those rockets that took out the nuclear factories in Iran.

  I believe someone thought they were called Raduga. What else do you have on them?”

  “Well, it references the weapons scrapping, and says the Raduga rockets…yeah, you were right…Raduga rockets. Let’s see…supposedly they were all destroyed in the fall of 1988, it says here. So, I guess whoever was thinking they were involved in the Iran thing was a little off base.”

  “But what if not, Roger? What if someone was able to hide a few?”

  “But, Jacob, for twenty plus years?”

  “What if, Roger? What if they’ve been packed in a warehouse all these years just waiting? If someone was able to hide a few…” He paused. “Do you have any more information on people that were involved in the rockets at that time? Maybe the demolition crews, or the overseers? The inspectors?”

  “Well, not that I can see right here. I won
der if I could re-vise this search, though, and get some names.”

  “Yes, try it. Maybe the names of anyone involved at all.

  Politicians, manufacturers, inspectors. Anyone linked in any way to that process. Then could you trace the names? Get the histories of all those people right up through today?”

  “Sure. It’ll be another long search, but if the info’s there, I can pull it up. I’ll tell you what. Let me load all this sub-report into another search and get it going on its own and we’ll let the original search keep on. Okay?”