COVERT WRITERS TAKEDOWN by Joe Bergeron (best beach reads txt) 📕

of
writers in Yankee Echo, he did know whom he thought
were its two main players - Robert Wirtham and
Michael Courtney.
He also knew that Wirtham and Courtney
wouldn’t just hand over the reigns of the organization to
Belize and Salazar for their initiative. In fact, there
plan was diametrically opposed to the information
contained in a fax message he’d received regarding
support for the President’s program. Once again, he felt
the pulsations of greed and power rippling through him.
He would need time to organize, to prove his worth, to
establish his conditions, to plan for a method of
payment to him as well as its schedule.
He hardly believed his own thoughts. How
many beautiful women would he have if he could get his
price from her? He would become a valuable commodity
among the fraternity of single females with…say two
million dollars in the bank.
He decided to breach his trust. No more
fourth-floor walk-up whores for him.
“Catalina…I have a special fax machine in my
home……”
74
The cloudless Cuban morning allowed a
February sun to heat, not only the day, but also two of
its participants sitting on a bluff overlooking the ninety
miles of water between them and the USA. Catalina
Salazar now had two million reasons not to believe his
amazing story about a clandestine writing organization
in America.
Having listened to a one hour narration on
Yankee Echo’s ability to crush U.S. public support for
the Cuban economic reform package, she considered
both his terms, and his story.
“You want two million dollars to give me two
names?”
“Catalina, you’ve just finished telling me you’d
provide me with a substantial amount of money if I
gave you the media coverage in Florida, and I’m telling
you that you can have the whole country. If you want
the economic reform plan subverted, and you’ve neither
denied nor confirmed that yet, then the only hope you
have is me.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth, Dan?”
“You don’t.”
“Then how do Miguel and I know we can trust
you?”
“You don’t know that either, but give me two
weeks, and I’ll produce enough evidence to convince
you.”
She rose to her feet, Claiborne clinging to her
ample form.
“Okay, Mister Bellcamp, let’s go tell this story
to my Vice President.”
“No, you go see him. I’m going back to Miami
to prepare the documentation you need.”
His eyes were cast all over her, sweat beads
from the morning sun forming on his brow cascaded
into his optic sockets, their saline content causing him
to squint.
75
Bellcamp was using Law Twenty Eight - a
rapid departure would leave open questions only he
could answer, question he preferred to answer on
American soil, on his turf.
“What about the story you came here for?
What will you tell your publisher?”
“He’ll understand. That story can’t be written
after one interview. I’ll need you to come to the U.S. to
give me more details. When you come to visit, I’m sure
you’ll have a diplomatic passport, and be able to deliver
my two million dollars - in American currency, please.
I’ll disappear once I have the money - Marshall
Chamberlain can have the Pulitzer.”
“Who…What!?”
“Never mind.”
“Dan, Miguel’s going to require a lot of
convincing.”
“Then we’ll need to spend some serious time
together to make that happen, won’t we?”
With a smile full of lust, he wiped the sweat
from his eyes. She took advantage of an opportunity
taking his arm, and, once again pulling it tight against
her body.
“Maybe we can spend some time very close
together, Dan.”
Deductive logic told him to be cautious, but
emotions overruled.
Friday, March 17, 11:15 a.m.
Miguel Belize left his meeting with Juan
Ramos Santiago feeling auspicious relief. He believed
his report on the state of the Cuban economic reform
plan had caused his President to believe each targeted
initiative of the plan was on schedule, and receiving his
full attention.
76
He’d told Santiago that the United States
Secretary of Commerce would be on the island during
the third week of May to discuss the possibility of
developing several manufacturing plants with
American assets - tractors and large-format diesel
engines were the most distinct possibilities.
Santiago knew the U.S. Commerce Secretary
was skeptical about American assets being committed
in Cuba, but he agreed to leave the American in his
V.P.’s hands.
He had an understanding with Randall Benson
who had three more years in office, and he trusted the
U.S. President implicitly. There were also others
interested in Cuba - from other countries.
Tollman’s meeting with Belize would actually
be a planning session, but it would be the antithesis of
what they thought Santiago expected. Their
discussions would revolve around the forced
exploitation of a clandestine writing organization, and
also around the two people revealed to them by a
Managing Editor of a major U.S. daily to be the leaders
of that operation, Robert Wirtham and Michael
Courtney.
Tollman, through the NSA had complete
dossiers no both men. In Wirtham’s folder, records
indicated he was the legal owner of JGM Exports. His
business consulting background, and the Physical Laws
component of his education, led the Secretary to believe
he was very capable of both forming, and operating a
multi-million dollar company.
Records indicated Wirtham had formed the
company while teaching at The University of Vermont.
An authorized electronic check into Internal Revenue
Service records evidenced no abnormal asses or capital
behavior at JGM - the company was solid.
On paper, and in the IRS computers, Wirtham
was a responsible corporate president making money
for his company.
77
Had Tollman not been briefed by Belize, he
wouldn’t have known that the great majority of monies
spent by JGM were going to Yankee Echo writers. In
addition, what was not in the former UVM professor’s
folder was the ‘why’ Why had Wirtham formed Yankee
Echo? There were no records to indicate payoffs for
favorable press from large corporations, foundations, or
political organizations.
Why the need for a covert organization with
such power? Where was the utility of the operation?
That part didn’t make sense to the Secretary. However,
an adversarial commonality actually made him admire
the organization and its composition.
Michael Courtney had been a straight ‘A’
student through the four years of his metaphysical
major at UVM. In his junior year, the acceptance of his
Physical Laws corollary earned him a title he never
used, even though the bequeathing of he title had made
him a nationally recognized figure in his field.
Courtney was paid one hundred twenty
thousand dollars a year by JGM Exports, and another
fifteen thousand by Boston College where he taught
The Physical Laws albeit just a few days a week. His
income taxes were in order, and he didn’t live
extravagantly. A casual, well-dressed and clean shaven
individual, he had dated several women, but had never
been married.
It was in the last paragraph on the final page
of the dossier for Michael Courtney where George
Tollman found the link he needed to convince the
analyst, and either his partner or boss, to provide
under duress, the power behind the organization known
as Yankee Echo.
78
Courtney was seriously involved with one of his
students, a Kathleen McKenzie, daughter of Patrick
Gaffe McKenzie III, Chairman of McKenzie Industries.
There was only one other McKenzie child, John Gaffe
McKenzie, mortally wounded in a firefight in the La
Dang Valley of Vietnam.
Tollman would meet the McKenzie family once
again - what was left of them. An addendum sheet to
Courtney’s folder indicated Patrick McKenzie III would
be vacationing alone in the Bahamas during the second
and third weeks of May.
Tollman jotted a note to himself:
Take K. McKenzie’s father to Cuba.
Let Courtney know through Wirtham
Operation begins 5/19
Saturday, May 20, 7:34 a.m.
There are approximately ten thousand people
per square mile in Washington D.C.’s sixty-three square
miles. The city with forty three hospitals, sixty-one
radio stations, and six universities and colleges, was
remarkably quiet considering its potential to make
noise.
Courtney appreciated the calm.
Passing the final light, another with an
electromechanical switch manufactured by Greencastle
Manufacturing, he saw the Rand building two blocks
ahead.
The granite structure, headquarters of JGM
Exports, was also home base for Yankee Echo. She
notice the lights on the third floor where all the square
footage was assumed by the export company and the
writing organization.
She thought out loud. “I wonder if Robert got
any sleep last night.”
79
Courtney, knowing she needed no confirmation,
responded with a request, the first part of the first
contingency plan he’d formed, and was now developing
through its first phase of implementation.
“Kay, after we see Robert, could you call the
Marriott and get us a suite with two separate phone
numbers? And also, could you call Eddie Dalger, either
at McKenzie, or at his home on Old Lyme? Ask him for
a Wallensak reel-to-reel tape recorder with an encoder
and also an anti-static system. Either he, or a
McKenzie technician is going to have to get it delivered
to the hotel today.
She nodded affirmatively without speaking.
Courtney wheeled the Jeep into the Rand’s
private garage. The new parking attendant, reviewing
his license plate, and checking it against his log, waive
the wagon through a now opening steel-grilled gate.
Locating a space next to one of the building’s three
elevators, he breathed a temporary sigh of relief
shutting down the V-6.
“It’ll be nice to take a shower upstairs. Which
bag do you need for a change of clothes?”
“All of them.”
She finally settled for her largest bag, the
carrying strap of which was now slung over his left
shoulder. She carried one of his, half as large in the
same fashion.
Behind the closed door of the elevator, he
regarded this girl, woman. In a physical statement
they had come to accept as a private demonstration of
passion, he gently stroked her cheek with the back of
his fingers, both looking deep into each other’s soul
through the passageways behind their eyes. Allowing
each other their vulnerability, they had now walls
between them right now.
80
The Rand’s entire third floor, to the casual
observer, appeared to be occupied by the export
company. Etched in its glass door were the scripted
initials JGM. They’d been engraved in memory of a
son.
Pushing on the three hundred pound clear
panel, it swung freely and easily on it fulcrum brushedsteel
hinges. He allowed her first entry.
A call from the garage attendant following a
prior briefing by Courtney had alerted JGM’s President
to the fact his visitors had arrived. He now entered the
unattended reception area where his two tired, one
slightly wounded friends deposited their luggage.
“KATHLEEN, MICHAEL!”
Robert Wirtham was promptly and
affectionately embraced by a young woman he’d known
since her childhood.
“Oh, Robert, it’s so good to see you - have you
heard from Dad?”
A somber reflected moan signified he had no
answer, but it wouldn’t be what she wanted to hear.
Courtney, two feet behind her, reacted with a straight
stare while almost imperceptibly shaking his head, not
an indication for Wirtham to lie, but to tell a half truth.
“Not yet, Kathleen. I’ve been trying. Don’t
worry, Hon, your dad can take care of himself.”
The latter part of Wirtham’s brief report cause
a release of hydrochloric acid into the innermost layer
of Courtney’s stomach.
“Kay, why don’t you take a shower and freshen
up, then you can call the Marriott and Eddie Dalger.”
She looked through him knowing he’d need
time to speak to Wirtham.
She also believed he’d tell her everything when
he finished analyzing whatever it was he needed to
analyze.
81
“Robert, I think my teacher’s going to ask you
some questions. I hope you have answers - he can get
cranky.”
She kissed her father’s friend on the