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

the library not
a moment too soon for her. There was little
conversation left between its prior two occupants, one of
the latter now shaking hands with Belize.
He got right to the point.
“Miguel, good to see you - let’s go to work.”
The Secretary seated himself where Bellcamp’s
ghost remained.
Salazar allowed herself a smug grin.
She wondered how many women were a part of
the Secretary’s highest level discussions in the United
States. Her intuition told her zero - she was right.
Tollman had a question.
“Is Mister McKenzie being cooperative?”
Belize had an answer.
“He has no choice, my friend. Yes, he is
behaving as a normal prisoner.”
Tollman had an order.
“We need him to speak with his daughter. I
want her to know he’s not harmed, and I also want her
to make his explanation for being away from the office.
Everything must appear normal in the United States.
Remember, we don‘t know how long this will take.
Belize had a question.
“Do you think they will contact the FBI”
130
“I doubt it. Wirtham and Courtney have too
much to lose, and they haven’t heard all our demands
yet. They would at least wait until we call them.”
“Very well, when you tell me, I will arrange for
him to speak with her.”
“I’ve written down what I want him to say -
nothing more.”
Opening his leather briefcase, the Secretary
retrieved a piece of plain white paper, no embossed
emblem of office on its mast.
The Vice President quickly scanned the sheet,
and handed it to Salazar, a silent demonstration of
confidence in her ability to carry out a mission.
Tollman didn’t question Belize’s decision to
hand over the instrument to his assistant.
He thought there was more to the expressed
trust than an official consignment of liability.
Sometimes faith is blind - and sometimes placed to
create illusions. In this case, for Belize, it was neither.
Every risk with her was worth the reward.
“I’ll call you when I want him to speak with
her. It’ll be early in the week.”
Tollman’s reluctance to be specific about an
exact date was not based on any masterful plan, but
rather on the present inability of an associate to locate
the party to be called.
The venue would be made. It was just a matter
of time.
Unknown to him, Michael Courtney was also
aware of that reality. The Leverage Effect might claim
the location of their temporary residence, but not before
the analyst had claimed a small victory.
Tollman continued.
“We need to discuss the Reform Package. I
have an outline Randall Benson’s given me to follow. If
I can make a presentation to congressional leaders that
will hang the President up on two points, I’ll gain
ninety days. 131
That could be enough time for Yankee Echo to
turn U.S. public opinion in our favor. Will that be
enough time on your end to secure the militia?”
“Si. Santiago now has their confidence, but I
believe it to be weak. He has yet to define their role in
the new democracy.”
“Good - use that as a base of strength. I want
to discuss these points and set a policy procedure that
depends on the two positions we have in our favor.”
During his emissary visit, The Secretary had
made judicious use of his ability to create and set in
motion the effort required to develop the Cuban
recovery. It was, however, a covertly cumbersome
initiative relying on the probability that Congress
would not be able to quickly work through his plan, the
effect of the multiple logistic complexities of the eleven
leading economic indicators, while at the same time
analyzing the possibility of a renewed Russian threat.
Within the halls of Congress, it would be
translated as ‘business as usual’ and would be
designated to linger in committee
The Secretary often thought how simple it
would be to run The United States if only businessmen
were allowed to run it. The chances of either the U.S.
Congress, or the Senate approving his plan in
committee were remote. It would take months before
they reacted.
In the elapsed time, a clandestine organization
would develop a negative public attitude toward the
plan, but not its originator.
Tollman would stand in the background and
watch the freedom of ten million Cubans become as
distant to them as the fifteenth sun from Jupiter.
It was thirty million dollars from the Cuban
treasury that formed the keystone in the arch he’d use
to complete the rest of his life.
132
Sunday, May 21, 12:31 p.m.
He glared at the man standing in front of his
desk.
“Did you say the Jeep was wired for six?”
The voice responding was tenuous.
“Yes. There‘s two transmitters. One under the
passenger‘s side of the dash, and one under the rear
seat.”
“Set my scanner. Have you found them yet?”
He tried to be reassuring,
“No. We only have a few more hotels to check.
We’ll find them.”
Sitting back, he scratched his jawbone.
“Call me as soon as you do.”
The dark haired man finished setting the
scanner and left. No closing remarks were required.
Rising from his seat, Tollman’s NSA associate
walked toward the fourth floor outer offices of the
National Security Agency. Thirty people were at
various posts processing data, tapping keyboards,
reviewing satellite imagery, and listening through
earphones to conversations thousands of miles away.
Tomorrow, a contingent of fifty others would
join these staff members on this floor. A rotating shift
meant the office was always covered.
The security of the United States has been, but
never again will be, without constant attention.
Satisfied no one was close enough to hear a
phone conversation, he decided to try calling the offices
of JGM.
When Patrick McKenzie’s company, and its
compliment of engineers, were retained by the United
States Air Force to develop the most powerful listening
system in the world for the F-15E Strike Eagle, they’d
solicited Courtney’s attendance at their meetings
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He’d consulted before on many projects for the
company.
Patrick McKenzie understood the advantages
of weaving the world of ultimate realities through the
sphere of accumulated scientific data.
The order of intuitive logic is a primary
ingredient in any scientific, or other research. In order
to form a consistent mathematical model, both
empirical knowledge and inductive reasoning must
merge in the research agenda. The scientist brings
empiricism, the metaphysician brings intuitive
reasoning and inductive order, and together, they build
mathematical theories.
Eddie Dalger and Michael Courtney had
discussed sound energy, which is mainly the back-andforth
motion of molecules. They’d also talked about the
fact that when the amount of energy in sound
diminishes, the amount that it becomes as another form
of energy increases by an equivalent amount.
Voice-activated sound energy emitted from a jet
fighter traveling at fifteen hundred miles per hour
toward another jet fighter simultaneously moving at
the same speed (toward the first fighter), is distorted in
both its transmission and reception because of heat
transfers in the molecules that constitute its sound
waves. There was never a way to eliminate the defined
‘static’ because the transfer of sound energy to heat
energy could never be prevented.
Courtney suggested to the group of engineers
that part of their problem could be solved by
investigating Law Thirty-Four.
34. In order to simplify, eliminate the
unnecessary, and the necessary is revealed.
He explained that while it would be impossible
for the team to rewrite the Laws of thermodynamics, it
would not be impossible to borrow from one to improve
another.
134
Using Law Thirty-Four as a fundamental tool,
the engineers eventually developed an anti-static
system model. The idea itself was quite simple.
If they could not stop sound from becoming
heat, why not super cool sound for only the moment you
need to hear it, and let it become heat after you’d
listened to it.
A subcontracted group of cooling experts from
United Technologies Carrier Corporation in Syracuse
New York, were brought in to develop the world’s tiniest
are conditioner.
Retrofitted into the F-15E pilots ear phones,
the system super cooled the fighter commander’s
incoming voice-activated sound waves for one and onehalf
seconds, allowing no transfer of energy, and
subsequently no distortion in the waves themselves for
that period of time, just enough time to hear what was
needed.
This same system, now assigned to a Wollensak
reel-to-reel tape recorder on the sixth floor of the
Washington Marriott waited to super cool the sound
waves in a telephone call from the breachers. The
phone connection from the JGM Exports to the Marriott
suite would silently activate the recorder. Every sound
wave being transmitted within two hundred feet of the
caller’s phone would enter that phones transmitter, and
would be recorded.
Dialing JGM’s seven digits on his secure, and
untraceable line, he laid before him the text prepared
by George Tollman.
His initial failure to locate the teacher and his
girlfriend did not sit well with The U.S. Secretary of
Commerce, and he was both anxious and determined to
make amends. The thought of two million dollars
lingered in his brain.
135
Seated thirty feet outside his door, an Iranian
national, positioned as a Maps Analyst, had come to
work today to fill in for an ailing translation specialist.
His ability to understand sever Arabic dialects allowed
him to be used for dual purposes, and it was worth the
overtime to him.
At the same time JGM’s number was being
dialed by Tollman’s associate, the Iranian map
specialist decided to get a coffee, and had placed his
earphones, complete with anti-static systems
manufactured by McKenzie Industries on his desk.
He was out of his traditional professional
environment, and therefore had not read the new
procedural manual for this particular section that made
it imperative for translation specialists to turn down
their incoming transmissions whenever they left their
post
The sound waves created by a conversation
between two Iraqi Generals were now being fed through
the improperly placed anti-static earphones, traveling
through the air into the associate’s phone transmitter,
and being recorded by the anti-static system in the
Wollensak. The caller’s human ear heard nothing but
unanswered ringing.
The Wollensak, set in record mode by the
activation of JGM’s secure line, taped the caller’s
breathing, the Iraqi Generals conversation, and
everything else within two hundred feet that made
noise. The tape recorder’s digital counter, originally set
at zero, now read 018 - not a lot of recording tape used,
about one minute, but enough used to reveal a truth.
136
Sunday, May 21, 12:46 p.m.
“Corn Flakes?”
“Yep, two boxes.”
Kay smiled, elbows resting on the table, chin in
her hands.
“Do you want them with milk?’
“Of course, it’s good for my bone development.”
They’d left the suite to have lunch in the
Marriott’s Diplomat restaurant just two minutes before
an unanswered call was placed.
Courtney had been correcting exam papers, she
perusing the Cuban information delivered by Wirtham’s
courier an hour earlier.
Although Wirtham had already called the
Dean, Michael thought it only polite to call the man
himself. He apologized for leaving quickly, but
sometimes consultants need to be available on a
moment’s notice.
The Dean, also a part-time management
consultant understood.
The Dean was also a close associate of Robert
Wirtham, whom he respected as a former professor.
“Fax us your grades when you finish correcting
your exams, Michael.”
He knew Courtney, not only by national
reputation, but also as a friend.
“Did you correct my exam yet, Professor?”
“Not yet - I’m waiting for you to offer me a
bribe.”
“How about I let you keep your job at
McKenzie?”
He chuckled for the first time in what seemed a
long time.
“OK, you aced it. I can’t find a better job, It
comes with too many perks.”
He reached across the table and touched the
back of her hand with his.
137
“Kay, what’s in the info