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

- economic -
social. In addition, I’ll give you your wish. You think
we should teach these concepts in our schools. I agree
with you. You set up the curriculum, and I’ll see that it
gets implemented wherever you want. You and Andy
St. Croix are valuable resources. We need you.”
Benson put his hand on Courtneys forearm.
“I’ll give you a month to think about it. You’ve
been through a lot. You need some rest. You’ll be
visiting here for a while.”
Releasing his hand from Courtney, he moved to
the coffee table to pick up a loose sheet of paper.
Pulling a pen from his shirt pocket, he wrote a number
on it and handed it to the analyst.
“That’s a number where you can reach me
directly any time of day. Don’t call at night, though,
unless it’s absolutely necessary. Mrs. Benson needs my
time too.”
404
He turned to Orefice.
“Let’s get going, Scotty - we have work to do.”
Facing Courtney again, and smiling sincerely,
he extended his hand.
“Good luck, Michael. I hope you take my offer
seriously.”
“I will, Mister President - thank you for your
answers.”
They shook hands.
Moving in front of Kay, he cordially bid her
good bye.
Her upbringing showed as she stood up.
“Miss McKenzie - thank you for all you’ve
done.”
She, very politely, “Yes, Sir.”
Everyone in the room rose.
Benson acknowledged each man.
When he and Orefice had departed, it was left
to Eisenberg to tell Courtney and St. Croix that they
would both be expected to be house guests of Pat
McKenzie for the next thirty days. They could come
and go as they pleased, but they should not leave the
State of Connecitcut.
At the end of that time, they’d need to give the
President an answer on his job offer.
It was decision time again.
405
Epilogue
The concepts in the Universal Physical Laws
are immutable, and therefore enduring. They come
from observation, tempered with instinct and
experience. If the same type of situation is observed
long enough, even if the characters and locations
change, and if someone has lived long enough to
accumulate some experience with life, they’ll come to
understand these truths, and will be able to practice
them in every event of life.
The Laws can be used to both harm and to
heal. They have changed people’s lives for the better
and for the worse. It all depends on how they’re
applied.
Teaching the Laws can be as frustrating as it is
rewarding. On first introduction to these principles, it’s
like telling someone to jump into an invisible boat with
a teacher and start rowing. Anyone must have faith to
believe in their magic and power, and few who’ve been
introduced to the axioms have the patience to keep on
practicing them.
While many are simple concepts, some others
can be difficult to understand. But, under the guidance
of a good teacher, in a supportive scholastic atmosphere,
most anyone can come to use them to help guide and
direct all their affairs.
Courtney wanted the opportunity to be able to
make the teaching of the Laws to younger children as
universal as it was to college students. The President
had offered him this chance, and following some lengthy
conversations with Kay and Andy St. Croix, he decided
to accept the position he’d been offered in the White
House.
St. Croix additionally had agreed to work for
the President.
Having the gift for applying the Laws to
military maneuvers, he would handle their application
in that arena for all branches of the military. 406
While Courtney would work them into
scholastic formats for the Administration, both he and
St. Croix would combine their skills to develop them in
economic agendas. They’d begin their new jobs right
after Labor Day.
Courtney never got an answer to his question
about George Tollman going on vacation as a dead man.
He didn’t think it would have taken a lot to figure it
out, but he also didn’t think it was worth the effort.
They’d been debriefed as Eisenberg wanted.
Holding nothing back, they gave him everything they
knew following the operation in Cuba. About Belize, his
mistress, Bellcamp, Tollman, and the mystery man in
either the CIA or NSA.
The breach was closed. Robert Wirtham, Scott
Orefice, Pat McKenzie, and Randall Benson were
convinced Courtney’s and St. Croix’s cooperation in the
debriefing also meant they were no threat to the
organization.
Almost everyone thought business for Yankee
Echo could resume as usual.
Eisenberg reserved both judgment and
decision.
He had reason, but no logic to support his
intuition.
Friday, July 2, 10:11 a.m.
With Kay at the helm, McKenzie’s Grady
White, a thirty-three foot twin outboard planed the
waters heading toward Buoy 54, a floating steel
structure in the middle of Long Island Sound.
407
Courtney explained his contingency to St. Croix.
“…Here’s what’s going on, partner. When
McKenzie designed the electronics system for Yankee
Echo, he made sure it would be complex enough so data
couldn’t be interrupted or retrieved by any outside
source. All the fax machines on the Yankee Echo
network are accessed by regular phone lines, but the
origination of their messages doesn’t come directly from
another phone. They’re delivered on a radio signal from
JGM Exports that get’s sent up to space where it’s
bounced off a satellite. All the ‘writes’ are scrambled
and coded by a cryptic software program. The actual
coding isn’t really complex, but the electronics from the
satellite to the fax machines would blow your mind.”
Approaching the buoy, Courtney reached out to
tether the Grady to one of its tie downs.
He continued his explanation.
“…Here’s how it works. Even though it’s a
sophisticated system of delivery from the satellite to
Yankee Echo writers. The delivery up to the satellite is
simple. Data is transmitted on a regular radio
frequency, but the signal’s electronically scrambled and
broken in half when it’s sent out.”
St. Croix thought he misunderstood.
“Broken in half?”
“Yeah, nobody in the world would break a
frequency to transmit anything - nobody except Yankee
Echo.”
“Doesn’t that make it kind of a weak signal?”
“Very, so no one ever pays any attention to it.
But it doesn’t matter - the magic’s in the satellite - in its
receiver. All we need to do is duplicate the signal, and
transmit something while the organization’s off the air.
Whatever we’re transmitting, no one can override. As
long as we’re using that one-half a frequency, no one
else can use it, including Yankee Echo.”
“How do you keep on transmitting something
so they can’t get back on the system” 408
“Good question.”
Courtney, unlocking and opening a water-tight
hatch on the buoy, invited his friend to look inside.
There was enough light to see a black metal box about
the size of a conventional microwave oven. Another
horizontally-laid smaller white box was attached to one
of its sides.
“That thing is its own energy source - a
perpetual motion gyro. McKenzie Industries came up
with it years ago. It runs off a quarter ounce of high
particle mercury in a vacuum tube inside the white box.
All you have to do is maintain the motion of the
mercury - the friction it creates keeps the gyro
spinning, and generating enough electricity to produce
half a radio signal.”
“How do you keep the mercury moving?”
Courtney held out both arms indicating the
body of water surrounding them.
“Waves - water current. The water here’s
always moving, which keeps old 54 moving. It doesn’t
have to move a lot to move a glob of mercury.
Friday, July 2, 10:29 a.m.
Reaching inside the buoy, Courtney opened the
black box and activated the system.
Closing the hatch, he relocked the small door
and dropped the key into Long Island Sound.
St. Croix asked the question.
“OK, it’s turned on?”
“Yep.”
Pointing skyward, he questioned again.
“What’s being sent up there?”
Courtney’s response wasn’t even close to what
he expected to hear.
“The Encyclopedia Britannica.”
“Huh!?”
409
“The transmitter’s hooked to a computer
powered by a thirty-six month lithium battery. It’s
programmed to send out the whole thing - twenty times.
That’s going to take about three years.”
“That’s what it’s doing right now?”
“Yep - and will continue to do so every second of
every day. Yankee Echo’s going to go through a lot of
fax paper.”
“Mick, won’t they be able to trace that signal to
where it’s comin from? You don‘t need rocket science to
track a radio signal.”
“No, remember what I said? When they set up
the system, they never figured anyone but themselves
would transmit to the satellite. Just like any other
computer, that satellite is a moron until you tell it what
to do - and there’s no logic board in it that can look back
and tell you what you’re doing to it. The only thing it
can do is what it’s programmed to do - and that’s
transmit a scrambled electronics signal. Conventional
methods of tracking won’t work because you have an
unconventional transmitter. It would take McKenzie
two years to build a tracing unit to find their own
signal.”
“Well, hell, once they fix it, they could just
replace it.”
“Probably, but that’ll take time. They’ll spend
half a year trying to figure out what to do, and when
they realize there’s nothing they can do, they’ll need
two years to build another one. At least we’ll let them
know that someone can access their science.”
He turned to Kay.
“We’d better get going.”
She was smiling.
Courtney and St. Croix decided to split up for a
while and catch each other again after Labor Day. St.
Croix would visit and relax with his friend, the Snake.
Courtney would stay with Kay in Old Saybrook until
two weeks before his new job began, taking that time to
find a place to live. 410
They’d told her father they’d be moving in together
when he went to work in Washington, probably around
Alexandria.
Friday, July 2, 10:32 a.m.
Murray Herald had decided to take the day off.
He had time coming, and the Business Editor of the
AKRON BEACON JOURNAL didn’t think there would
be a lot of hot business news he’d need to attend to this
day.
Sitting in his den, he was catching up on some
old Fortune 500 reports when he heard the warble of
his Yankee Echo fax machine.
Slowly getting out of his chair, he wondered if
he wasn’t getting another ‘write positive’ on Cuban
investment. ‘Probably not’, he thought. It was too close
to the first ‘write’ that he’d just completed and
published. At the machine, he pulled the first
coded sheet of paper noticing there was no heading or
opening.
His reaction would be paralleled across the
country by other organization writers.
“What the hell is this?”
411
A-AK
ANCT EASAN
MSC
S GAGAKU
ACAPLA
ITLN
I T CHCH
STL
PFRMCE O
A PLYSNC
MLTPT
SXCI WRK
BY UNCCMPND
VCS
ORGN RFFE
T SCRD CHRL
MSC T TRM N
RFFES T SCULR
MSC A WL………..
It continued…and continued.
Grabbing his code book from the desk drawer,
he began decrypting.
A-ak ancient East Asian music: see gagaku
Acappella (Italian: in the church style).
Performance of a polyphonic multipart musical work by
unaccompanied voices. Originally referring to sacred
choral music. The term now refers to secular music as
well………..
The machine kept kicking out paper.
Every thing made sense, and yet, made no
sense at all. What was he supposed to do with this?
He decided to let it run - maybe they were
performing some kind of test? If it didn’t stop in an
hour, he’d call his Managing Agent and ask him what
was going on.
412
The fax continued to spew out coded words that
meant something, and nothing.
Friday, July 2, 10:36 a.m.
David Eisenberg’s fax was producing