Leon Uris (6 page)

WASHINGTON, D.C., 2008

It is nearly three o’clock. Nothing makes time pass more slowly than waiting for a cold pot to boil.

“Get me Whipple,” I ordered over the phone.

“Whipple here, Mr. President.”

“What’s going on?”

“Just a few minutes ago the O’Connell people called a news conference for tomorrow at one
P.M.
Rocky time.”

“Sounds like O’Connell is burning the midnight oil.”

“Yes, sir. The press corps is heading for Troublesome Mesa en masse.”

“Contact my staff advisers. We’ll watch the press conference in the Situation Room. Christ, what’s going on?”

“A lot of rumors. One here is interesting. A
New York Times
correspondent, June Siddell, spotted someone she knew debarking at the Denver airport. She got to the manifest and confirmed the passenger was a fairly well-known police detective by the name of Ben Horowitz. He was met by O’Connell’s staff, and they headed from the airport in the direction of Troublesome Mesa. Reporters at Troublesome confirm Horowitz’s arrival, where he was taken straight up to the O’Connell ranch.”

“How does all this fit, Whipple?”

“Haven’t got a clue, Mr. President.”

“Have the FBI in New York find out who this
Horowitz guy is.” Before Whipple could complain about using the FBI for this, I tried moving on quickly: “Now, where is the veep?”

“Uh, sir, are you sure about the FBI?”

“We’ve got no goddamned time to fiddle-fart. Do it! Now, where’s the vice president?”

“Dallas.”

“Get him.”

Senator, now Vice President, Matthew Hope was my major concession to a very vocal Southern Christian coalition. Matt Hope was one of them, body and soul. Through him I could control that bloc. During the last stage of Clinton’s reign, several Christian denominations, Presbyterian, United Methodist, as well as the Catholic and Jewish clergy had come out with thorough anti-gun proposals. After Clinton left office, the gun lobby awakened and gained back most of their rights. Central to this was Matt Hope’s unquestioned hold on sixteen million Southern Baptists.

“Matt Hope speaking.”

“Matthew, what’s the rumor mill saying down in Dallas?”

“Not much, Mr. President.”

“We’ve got a little change of plans, Matt. Get back to Washington immediately. Be in the Situation Room by two
P.M.
Before we sign off, I want you to be thinking about some disturbing numbers I received from our pollsters a few hours ago. Since the big debate there has been slippage all over your territory.”

The vice president cleared his throat. “Oh, just a surge. There will be a more favorable adjustment picture as the line flattens out.”

“Bullshit!” I informed him. “There has been a two-point swing to O’Connell in South Carolina and Alabama. A two-and-a-half-point swing in Louisiana, Georgia, and Mississippi. That’s a fucking
trend, Matthew.”

“Hell, the Presbyterians are
your
people, Mr. President.”

“That’s my point, Matthew. The Southern Baptists are your baby. There are sixteen million of them. We are losing ground in Baptist land. Maybe their women haven’t submitted graciously.”

Matthew Hope, my would-be deliverer, waffled and spoke Potomac gobbledy-gook. I hung up. The door to the adjoining room was open, and Darnell came in.

“I thought I heard a lark singing,” he said, “so I supposed you were up.”

“I sent for Matthew. If I can win without the Baptists and get that Baptist gun off my head, I’ll have Matthew Hope shoveling horseshit like a vice president should.”

“My hunch is that what O’Connell announces is going to be a national issue. The South may only be one player.”

“You’re usually right, Darnell. We’ll use Matthew this final week to lock up Texas and Florida.”

Darnell knew my discomfort.

“We’re in very gray territory, Thornton. However, we’ve been in gray territory a good part of our lives. Talk about getting through by the skin of our teeth; we didn’t have a slice of baloney to put in the middle of two slices of bread when we hit bottom. We were sharp, we were bold. We were unethical and bailed ourselves out by our wits. Do you miss those days, Thornton?”

“Hell, no.”

“This election is not over. Something is in the air. I can almost smell O’Connell’s blood from here.”

I sent Darnell to get the latest updates.

No use of me trying to fall back asleep. I never had trouble sleeping before I became president. I
tried to set up a physics problem in my mind, but I simply wasn’t clicking in.

It is strange how Darnell sees our lives in two sweeping cycles. He’s right that the early days set the tone of our toughness and resourcefulness. Can you believe that the nineteen seventies were nearly four decades ago?

Do I really miss it? Hell, no! Well, maybe.

PAWTUCKET, THE 1970
s

Thornton Tomtree clung to the square block of the junkyard by the hair of his rinny-chin-chin, so absorbed in his work he scarcely differentiated between light and darkness. He hand-made a fleet of prototypes with their own bells and whistles and exotic functions.

The great electronic revolution that had growled and growled now burst through the top of the volcano.

Because Thornton did not study the wizardry of his future competitors, he was alone in a technology of one. Yet, how would the Bulldog fit into this brave new world?

Darnell, who was supposed to market it, wondered even more. To what avail was the Bulldog? Darnell did not return to Providence College in his senior year but joined Thornton in the yard. Darnell had already chucked in his entire inheritance, a hundred thousand dollars, which Thornton had no trouble eating up.

The yard had ceased to trade in junk. The bank account—nonexistent. Darnell organized a fire sale.

As the various piles of scrap and paper disappeared, they ended one life and entered into another. Neither of them had inherited Henry and Mo’s love of trash.

Finally, the good stuff went. The stained glass and
antique embellishments were carted off, and all that remained was a single shacklike warehouse building and Thornton’s rat’s nest of wires.

Darnell charted the most likely paths the new enterprises would take. Much of it was happening too fast to comprehend. The top new inventors and marketers could not give a rational answer as to where it was all heading. Some companies soared, some crashed. They bashed into one another in merciless attempts to have their product become a standard item.

Darnell and Thornton spoke throughout more than one night trying to evolve a strategy. They knew they would not take the Bulldog into the middle of a battlefield. They also knew they had to remain free of outside control.

It came down to a purpose of being. To what avail was the Bulldog? What road could they take with the Bulldog that others could not follow? What unique niche would this system fill?

Simultaneously, they had come to a dark place. The darkness held the secret. Speed is the seed of greed, Darnell had said.

As each new innovation reached the market, Thornton’s “purpose for being” opened wider. He followed inroads in his mind where Darnell could not follow.

“We must keep the darkness dark,” Thornton said at last. “What’s happening, Darnell? Every computer is trying to outfox every other computer. Highwall technology is trying to turn back invaders. A mad hunt is on to keep security and integrity of a system. This eats up half a researcher’s time. But! What are they doing but reacting to something already taking place? In my own modest way, I can break into almost any line and decode any message.”

“We can’t market that.”

“We can build a system that’s impenetrable. We can have that system in place and grab our corner of the market while the others are playing catch-up. We’ll have it going in.”

“What?”

“Unbreakable encrypted messages and transactions.”

“You sure?”

“I am positive,” Thornton said, holding up a small black box called the Growler, an accomplished highline code and decoder. The Growler also came from a place deep inside Thornton Tomtree, his versions of math, his flirtation with quantum. His natural penchant for secrecy!

“Wouldn’t we be better off just selling the Growler?”

“No way.”

“But it may cost millions to set up one network for one company.”

“We place our small terminals at Harvard, MIT, Cal Tech, Georgia Tech, Stamford, and with the Army, Navy, and Air Force and let those people break their balls trying to decode us. You, my dear friend, will sell the results to, say, three hundred companies in the Fortune Five Hundred. Three hundred corporations installed and paying monthly fees for absolute protection starts to add up to billions…”

Thornton was right, but even so, he was wrong, Darnell thought. What had he said:
keep the darkness dark
. As Darnell studied the meaning of the system, he assured himself that they would be clear of antitrust violations, unfair competition, and other government interference. After all, they were only going after a very small piece of the market.

However, Thornton would not stop with three hundred Bulldog networks once it had become the Rolls-Royce of the computer world.

Banks, insurance companies, car manufacturers, oil companies, police, airlines, mercantile chains, medical networks…all in secret.

A great central mainframe to be built in Pawtucket could drive thousands of networks. The senders and receivers could not operate unless both were positively identified through fingerprints, photos, and a DNA scanner.

Darnell did not go in fully convinced, but followed his own part of the work. He set up the university and military network, exciting and challenging the listeners. The military was particularly sought out, for any system installed for them would open the door to a hundred corporations. The bright people in his new thinking would exercise their minds achingly trying to break the Growler. To no avail.

Thornton growled in content as his friendly adversaries threw in the towel. The Growler flipped to one of several million code algorithms so that the sender and receiver had to be “married.”

But that was out there and this was down here. In the real world they were a long way from the financing to build mainframes.

Darnell had lingering doubts. He always held out hope that a universal benefit could be found somewhere in the system. It was Darnell’s upbringing, a matter of the soul to answer dirty questions. As Thornton went in, seemingly without scruples, Darnell wondered if he would be able to follow.

“What we are doing, Thornton, is tapping into man’s paranoia. Half the energy in a computer is to mistrust, and the walls go higher until we come to the ultimate weapon, the Bulldog. You see, mistrust begets mistrust, and the fucking computer industry is being built on greed. So, we’d be building a buffer around the corporate elites to carry on in total secrecy. That is the dark space, and we will control the
night. The government eventually will make us give up the Growler.”

“Think about this, Darnell, because you plotted it. In another decade there are going to be millions of individual terminals and business networks, and a damned good part of them will be scamming the public. They are the ones the feds will go after, to clean up smut and thievery.”

“They’ll get around to us…”

“By the time the government does, much of the world’s commerce and defense will run on Bulldog networks. We will be too integral a part of the world’s being to fuck around with.”

“Keep the darkness dark,” Darnell mumbled.

“You’ve got it. All we do,” Thornton said, “is supply the technology. It is up to our clients to supply the morality.”

Refining the dream was slow going. Getting a full-sized network up and running was galactic in reach.

Ping, went the checkbook.

“I’m going to need twenty thousand dollars by the end of next week, Darnell.”

“Maybe we’re going to have to go to the bank or take in a partner.”

Thornton pondered long enough to empower his database of broken codes.

“Thornton, I don’t like you doing that!”

“Let’s see, First Union of Providence. It’s drug money. They launder it by transferring it to ‘Reserve Building Funds,’ which the bank invests partly in new construction. Bundles of cash come in. Checks are cut by the dozens.”

“Man, we’re dealing with some nasty dudes.”

“Well, how the hell do you think we’ve stayed alive? Besides, we’re not dealing with real bright people. Those stupid-ass bankers lend money to Mexico.
Anyhow, they don’t question transfers out of the Reserve Building Funds. All I do is bill them for consulting fees, pick up a check at a post office box, and deposit it. Darnell, they’re sending out checks to dealers all the time under the guise of consulting fees.”

“Ahem,” a voice behind them announced. A proper gentleman entered the shack and handed Thornton a card which read
DWIGHT GRASSLEY
. It was one of those top-echelon business cards that need not carry an address, phone number, or type of business. Dwight Grassley was it.

The Grassley pedigree in Rhode Island went back over two centuries when they landed as Quakers on Block Island. The Grassley dynasty, once a towering insurance and banking power, had peaked, but mainly through too much inbreeding, it had fallen to a lesser plateau, as factory after factory shut down, plunging New England into a manufacturing and economic crisis.

Indeed, the Grassleys were a diminished power, but a power nonetheless.

The Grassley before them was short, round-faced, apple-cheeked, with the pasty smile of an unfavorite son. He would not have been heard from again, but the patriarchs and matriarchs all seemed to die about the same time, leaving him a primary heir.

Dwight got kicked up to first vice president and COO of the Grassley operating entity.

“Sorry to barge in on you without an appointment.”

“Well, that doesn’t seem to be a problem,” Darnell noted.

“I was looking over Hell’s Acres here to see what we can do with it. We own most of this land, but there’s no money in parking garbage trucks.”