The place looks best at dusk, she thought. The oak trees across the pond outside had already turned dark and were casting a black profile across the lawn, but the western sky was still alight in vivid orange. It was very quiet now around Chapel Hill Farm; she could hear the silence. The place looks best at dusk, she thought again, but when do I look best? She turned to the mirror next to the fridge and studied her reflection.
Anyhow, she was finally done with the dishes, so she picked up the tea things---already prepared---and crossed into the living room for a quiet evening with her husband. As always, he had offered to help, but tonight she had gently turned him down. There were days when the silverware disliked him, chinking and clanging in his hands as if there was a problem, and today had been one of those days, and she would not have been able to handle more clanging in her kitchen. In fact, the silverware had become increasingly argumentative lately. Her nerves? His nerves? Her nerves?
Doubya was already installed in the sateen slouch chair in front of the TV, the shiny cowboy boots resting on the matching pouf, his left hand resting on his crotch. Hussein's gun was lying next to him on the coffee table; he must have played with it while she was in the kitchen. My God, she hated this gun---the gun that Hussein had carried when being apprehended by the American forces while hiding in a hole in the ground. Didn't the piece belong to the American people? Its proper place was in a museum. How could he just take it home? She had actually raised the question with Fredo, the pliable attorney general. The Museum of the War of Choice, she had suggested helpfully, but to no avail.
Doubya greeted her arrival with his trademark grin, pointed to the empty chair next to him with the left shiny boot, and, grinning some more, turned his head to the television set where Betty Bartholomeo, the Lynx anchor, was already in command. “It's a special about us,” Bush said. He took up the gun and swung it around his index finger. Laura followed his every movement with her eyes, hoping he would notice, but Doubya’s attention was already fixed on the anchor. Laura sat down.
Bartholomeo had been a vigorous presence in the living room ever since their return from Washington, her blond wig resolutely strapped over her big head, the horse hair falling into a face with broad cheeks, large lips and a long, aquiline nose, not to mention the strong chin, an odd mix of features that did little---or everything---to explain the anchor's popularity. Her small breasts stood out. No, Betty wasn't pretty in the usual way of conservative ice queens, but she had the screaming presence of the closet transsexual that she actually was.
“And he led America successfully through its worst trauma in decades, many say its worst trauma ever,” Betty went, while the screen switched to footage of the Twin Towers’ attack. “2966 victims died in the attack,” she continued, as desperate individuals, trapped by the flames, jumped off the burning towers and trundled along the still-erect structure to their certain death. “The nation rallied around its leader, whose approval ratings soared to unprecedented heights…”
Cut. Fortunately. Cut to an oversized, animated graph titled Bush Approval Ratings, which rose in slow motion from fifty five percent to eighty six, past seventy, eighty, and ninety percent, while Betty continued:”… at one point reaching ninety two percent, in itself a historic, and unprecedented, achievement.” Betty’s “92” was timed exactly with the “92” on the screen. She raised her shoulders, and leaned forward across the polished anchor desk. A moment of truth.
-“History's justice is our subject tonight,” Betty pronounced, but the moment of truth didn't quite materialize as Doubya turned to Laura, and, swinging his gun, interrupted: “Well, make no mistake, the Freedom Fries were stupid.”
Laura couldn't concentrate. ”You always make me nervous with that gun of Hussein of yours,” she said. Doubya stopped the swinging, but insisted:”The Freedom Fries were stupid.”
-“The House canteen isn’t edible, whether French or liberated.”
- “I wonder if they are still called Freedom Fries, they made us look stupid.”
-“No, they are not”---she knew those things.
-“Not a good excuse. They made us look stupid.”
-”From a French point of view you look stupid anyhow.”
Betty intervened, thankfully: “Armchair pundits later blamed the administration, and the Nine Eleven Commission complained…” ---on the screen, an animated human hand was leafing through a forbiddingly oversized report, one of these bookworks that nobody wants to read--- “…that the domestic agencies never mobilized in response to the threat, and that the terrorists exploited deep institutional failings within our government, but the fact of the matter is that NineEleven was essentially an act of God, for which not the Bush administration, but others, bear responsibility. Reverend Falwell…”
The famous reverend materialized from nowhere, took position under Lynx’s bright studio lights, his jowls properly hanging, a halo firmly strapped over his head---no, let’s take that back, she was fantasizing, there was no halo---and took over: “Throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools, the abortionist got to bear some burden for this, because God will not be mocked when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad, I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists…”
Laura had heard this before.
***
Samuel Fisher sat in one of his many Eames Aluminum Chairs at the big conference table when Betty Bartholomeo was ushered into the splendid office of the media mogul. Crossing through the translucent crystal doors into his ulterior world, she smiled the smile of corporate worship, and Fisher reciprocated in kind. He waved her lightly into the chair next to himself, turned his head, and pointed with his chin to a gargantuan screen on the opposite wall, where the famous Reverend Falwell was holding forth:
“…we make God mad, I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians, who were actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, people for the American Life, all of them, who tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen’.” The Reverend lowered his jowls accordingly.
Betty’s image reappeared on the screen, while the real Betty was feeling markedly uncomfortable next to Fisher. It was never a good sign when the boss was asking you to come watch your own show, but her other self on the screen didn’t know and continued cheerfully: “Our theme tonight is History’s Justice, and George W. Bush understood that, next to others, Saddam Hussein also bore responsibility for NineEleven.”
Betty now shared a split screen with Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state. Dr. Rice had been the first female black cabinet secretary in history, which was a big thing, and possibly the biggest thing in her life. She was not a good listener, but Rice had to listen this time, because she was trapped in the canned footage of an appearance on Lynx in 2002, six month before the war. Betty continued: “Saddam Hussein was a dictator who, for years, had been menacing the world with the threat of the possibility of the suspicion of the eventuality of nuclear warheads---Dr. Rice….”
Rice opened her mouth:”We know that he has the infrastructure, nuclear scientists to make a nuclear weapon. And we know that when the inspectors assessed this after the Gulf War, he was far, far closer to a crude nuclear device than anybody thought.”
The split ladies faded abruptly into darkness---which then exploded into a blinding fireball across the screen. Rice’s voice survived, however: “He was maybe six months from a crude nuclear device. The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly Hussein can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” On cue, the fireball transmogrified into a mushroom cloud. A poignant moment.
Betty relaxed a bit. A good show, she thought, eying Fisher; he can’t be too unhappy. The media mogul felt her gaze, lowered the TV sound per hand wave, and turned his head to two other screens mounted next to the first one on the palisander-paneled wall. One displayed a large chart, containing 6 graphs, in various colors, plus a thicker line, in white. The graphs were animated, so to see; they appered to react to her broadcast. The last screen displayed more charts under the heading Overall Ratings History. All those charts were pointing south.
“Basic emotions, you understand,” Fisher said to her with his signature South-African accent. “You know that we measure sample households for the ratings. Household members carry individual devices, People Meters, which connect wirelessly. Now, the latest models, top secret, they can sense the basic, raw emotions of human subjects, you understand?” He pointed to the second screen, with its 7 animated graphs. “The meters can sense fear, anger, disgust, sadness, joy, and surprise, all in real-time. Sort of telepathic. You see the colored graphs? Fear is yellow, anger is red, disgust is purple … see it?” Yes, she could see it, they were actually labeled; joy was orange, surprise was green, and sadness was blue.
Fisher got up, excited now, and waved at the TV screen again. The sound of Betty’s show returned, while her anchor personality was saying: “President Bush came down hard on the Iraq dictator, who was toppled in a blitzkrieg of only 42 days with a minimum of casualties on our side.”
Anchor Bartholomeo was replaced by footage of President Bush landing in a combat jet on the aircraft carrier Abram Lincoln. Dressed smartly in a brand-new combat suit, the commander in chief deplaned, beamed, shook the hands of his beaming sailors, strode across the flight deck, and took position behind a lectern, while a huge banner with the text “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED” watched over the unfolding scene from the ship’s control tower, flapping lightly in the breeze.
Meanwhile, the basic emotions on Fisher’s second screen had been getting agitated. Joy and surprise were shooting up, sadness was down, fear was rising, while the thick white line, whose meaning Fisher hadn’t explained, shot through the roof.
“Major combat operations in Iraq have ended,” Bush read from a cue card. “In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”
Perhaps it was the cue card, but joy and surprise took a step back, and the mysterious white line was losing exuberance. Fisher felt Betty’s puzzlement. He lowered the sound by hand, and said:”The white line sums it all up. It’s a secret formula that translates raw feelings into one number.” He was full of himself now. “And that number is receptiveness. Receptiveness means business. The right mix of fear, anger, disgust, sadness, joy, and surprise. A secret formula. Secretissimo. It’s already called the Fisher formula, although I didn’t invent it, I have my minions. Anyhow, receptiveness it is. Receptive viewers stay with the show … and … buy the pitch of the next commercial.
He sat down. Then he got up again, performed a full pirouette on his left Gucci loafer, and cheered: “Kassa, kassa!”
***
Meanwhile, back at Prairie Chapel Ranch, Bush swung his gun---not his gun, Hussein’s gun---and Bartholomeo continued: “The President’s ratings soared again, deservedly, to precedented heights, although the liberal media were never able to forgive the president his success, and carped about the alleged absence of weapons of mass destruction, the casualties of Iraqi civilians in the ensuing civil war, the cost of the war, the casualties on the American side, the manipulation of war-supporting intelligence, and the Abu Ghraib prison event, when a few inappropriate pictures of prisoners were leaked to the media in detriment to the security of our troops…”
Betty gave way to a photograph of a figure tiptoeing on top of a tiny box, covered by a soiled bluish sheet ragged at the hem, the arms half-stretched sideways, the open palms turned to the camera, gnarled wires connected to both hands and liaised back to some cabling on the wall, the head covered with a pointed black hood. There was an eerie composition to the photograph; it balanced the suggestion of an electrocution with the floppiness a practical joke.
The retired first couple knew this picture, of course; the entire world knew it. It had served as an icon of resistance against the War in Iraq. Even the mainstream Economist, a supporter of the war by the way, had put it on its cover with the cry: “Resign, Rumsfeld.”
Old news, used news, no reason to get aggravated. Still, Doubya stopped swinging his gun as the snapshot appeared on the screen. Laura observed the nexus between torture and gun-swinging, and made a mental note.
-“I should have accepted Rummie’s resignation right then,” Doubya said.
-“He didn’t offer any resignation right then.”
-“Well, he was sort of misingenuous. On TV, he said, he did, right?”
He does it again, Laura thought. “Disingenuous,” she said, “disingenuous, not misingenuous. Disingenuous.”
-“English as first language,” Doubya replied, “a recipe for trouble, especially with former librarians to whom one happens to be married.”
He could have swung his gun again, Laura thought, which he didn’t. She was grateful.
-“You’d be no better in Spanish,” Laura stated.
-“Mexican is my strong suit.”
Okay, she thought. He won. I still love him. She looked out of the window, where the orange of the western sky had turned purple. “Those pictures were mistakenly called torture, although there had been no organ failure, nor death,” Lynx interrupted.
***
Fisher walked back and forth across the breadth of his titanic mezzanine office; outside, the dark, starless sky served as backdrop of Manhattan’s electric skyline. Betty studied him, then herself.
“Our theme tonight is History’s Justice,” her understudy said, “and we should not fail to mention Bush’s intervention in Afghanistan, where he vigorously and courageously chased, and almost caught Al Qaida head Bin Laden, and countless other terrorists.”
The image of an uncompromising Arabic face with deep-set eyes, hollow cheeks, and a hopeless beard appeared on the screen. The readings on the rating screen jerked in excitement.
Fisher lowered the sound again, and intervened:” The white line … sums it all up for us. We have only one small problem with the meters. The ratings are down.” He pointed to the third screen. Betty already knew. The ratings were going south. They were down this week, and this month, and this year. What if I die, she thought, would it help? Her best performance had been in, yes, 2003, right at the top of the war, the day that American troops had toppled Saddam’s statue in downtown Baghdad. She remembered the minute. Fisher would remember it as well. Even Bin Laden appeared to remember, the way he stared pensively at her from the screen.
“The ratings are down,” Fisher continued. And they still fall. It’s not only your fault. Meters tell us. Mostly the administration, of course. There is anger and fear, yes, and disgust, but it isn’t balanced by the joy of a good crisis. It’s all about unemployment and foreclosures. Boring stuff. Macro-economics. Paul Krugman. That sort of thing. Obama is insulting our intelligence every day, why can’t he insult the Sheikh of Djerba, or prime president Putin, or somebody else near a red button? Nothing beats a good crisis when it comes to network TV. Obama isn’t listening. No, it’s not only your fault.”
“What are you trying to tell me?” Betty decided to ask. She had to make a stand now, and pursed her lips in preparation, but der Führer had already turned around and raised the TV sound again.
“A danger to every working American family,” the TV sounded, “these terrorist were subsequently secured in Guantanamo Bay, though the liberal media could never forgive that America was kept safe by enhanced interrogation techniques. But History’s Judgment prevailed.”
Another screen split, this time with an oriental face, roundish, smooth, academic, male.
-“Here we have the author of the enhanced interrogation memos, Professor John Yoo of Berkeley University, who knows more than anybody else about torture” ---the oriental face winced---“Professor … if the president deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?”---the charts chuckled, disgust was especially vibrant, and receptiveness rose.
-“No treaty,” Professor Yoo replied, the face straight again.
- Also no law by Congress?
-“I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.”---the charts lost vibrancy; receptiveness fell.
Bartholomeo changed tack:”Well, President Bush did not torture.”
-“Congress has no power to tie the President’s hands in regards to torture as an interrogation technique.”
-“But the president did not torture.”
-“There is a category of behavior not covered by the legal system ...If you were an illegal combatant, you didn’t deserve the protection of the laws of war... They were tried in a military court, and executed,”---receptiveness rose briefly, then fell again.
Batholomeo pleaded: “Professor, could you please answer my question? Did the president torture, or did he not?”---receptiveness rose.
-“It’s the core of the Commander-in-Chief function. They can’t prevent the President from ordering torture,”---receptiveness fell.
Fisher sat down next to Betty and whispered in her ear:”Useless, this Yoo. Never mention Congress. Worse for the ratings than you are.” Betty jolted.
-“Did I hurt your feelings?” Fisher asked, and kissed her on her cheek.
-“Well, President Bush knew how to answer this question,” anchor Betty continued.
Bush himself re-appeared on the screen, and, jumping from one clip to the next, wearing a different tie each time, asserted:
-“We do not torture.”
-“We do not torture.”
-“We do not torture.”
***
“History’s Justice was our theme tonight, and President Bush has done well. He did not torture.”
Why does he do this to himself, Ron thought. He was standing next to his boss who sat in his modest Aeron chair behind his modest desk, obviously transfixed by the screaming Lynx queen. Why does he do this to himself? He could be the happiest billionaire in the world; why this obsession with Bush?
Ron cast a sideway glance at the wall behind the desk. Another oddity. Other hedge fund titans would have a Rothko hanging there, or a Francis Bacon. Yet Lukacs, who had practically invented hedge funds, and who, on this metric, ought to have a decaying crocodile waiting there---swimming in a formaldehyde tank with the letters Damien Hirst printed in gold on its decaying snout--- George Lukacs had instead opted for a wall of fame. It was covered by too many frames competing for too little space, each showing off an important award. Ron felt guilty because he was in charge of the arrangement, but the awards came in so fast, and George wouldn’t hear of any suggestion to move office. Ron cast his eyes upon one the ugliest, which had been calligraphed over a blunt raster image of a middling Daytona race car defined by its phallic tailpipe; it read: American Hedge Fund Award of the Year, category 24 hours. George Lukacs returning plus US$ 1.6 BILLION by shortening Lehman stock on Sept. 21, 2008. Ron remembered the day.
Lukacs must have sensed Ron’s absentmindedness, since he touched his arm and pointed to the screen. Ron, in turn, sensed Lukacs’ despair. George is transfixed by Lynx the way a washed-up gambler is transfixed by the tables, he thought.
“Mr. Bush is the triumph of the seemingly average American man,” the Lynx anchor continued, while her image gave way to footage of the axis of evil---Bush, Rumsfeld, and Cheney, who were taking, yes, that was the word, taking the national anthem. Each with his right hand pressed to the breast, they stood to attention as the star-spangled hymn played and dark clouds raced across a gray sky.
“He’s normal. He thinks in a sort of common-sense way,” Bartholomeo continued in voice overlay. Lukacs, still holding Ron’s arm, had started to tremble. Ron, who thought himself close to his boss, was feeling the pain. What happens if he collapses? If he dies? If I lose my job? We need to stop this. He pointed to the remote on the desk, conspicuously. Lukacs got Ron’s message, indeed grabbed the remote, and pushed the off button, but to no avail.
“He speaks the language of business and sports and politics,” Bartholomeo’s voice commented the anthem-playing, breast-pressing, cloud-racing patriotism on her screen. Lukacs tried other buttons, furiously. The remote was kaput.
“You know him. He’s not exotic,” Bartholomeo persisted. Lukacs handed the remote to Ron. Ron tried all sorts of buttons. Nada.
“But if there’s a fire on the block, he’ll run out and help. He’ll help direct the rig to the right house and count the kids coming out and say, ‘where’s Sally?’” Lukacs grabbed the remote back, hit more buttons. He finally hit the desk with the damned device face down.
“He’s responsible. He’s not an intellectual. Intellectuals start all the trouble in the world,” Bartholomeo continued.
“That’s Hitler,” Lukacs yelled at the top of his Hungarian accent. “Intellectuals start all the trouble in the world…pure Hitler.” He grabbed the damned remote again, clasped it firmly, bent his right arm backwards, and threw it with all his hedge fund force at the TV-screen. He did not miss. The set made the diving pitch of an approaching bombshell, flickered one last time, and died.
CHAPTER 2
The classroom with its white tables, whiteboards, and overhead projector conveyed the so-so appearance of a better UC campus, yet the linoleum on the floor gave the fact away that California’s university system had basically run out of money since Proposition Thirteen in 1978. Jim felt slightly awkward in this bluish overall, but he had come solely for the purpose of today’s happening, and so he was sitting nervously next to Liz, who had made him do this.
Liz was obsessed with Yoo because she loved constitutional law. She would sit up in bed at night and read Supreme Court opinions like other girls of her bend would read Jane Austen---not to study really, no, to relish an outdated language with pointers to a distant, politer past. She was the only con law student in America who did not aspire to become Supreme Court judge; instead she dreamed of a humbler job, Reporter of Decisions. The reporter is charged with the syllabus, an introduction to court opinions that supposedly help the public to understand the context, and the syllabus usually does its best to compete with the arcane language of the opinion itself. She would write more language for the record of the court than any individual judge. It’s a nice position, fairly well paid, and you work closely with the Justices. Reporter of decisions under Chief Justice Pamela Nachtrieb Timbers, that was her ambition. Timbers was actually serving as dean of Berkeley’s law school at the moment, but she was clearly destined for higher things, and Liz would follow her to the Supreme Court. Liz was mesmerized by Pamela, infatuated with Pamela, captivated by Pamela. It wasn’t sexual---let’s hope---, but that was the only thing it wasn’t. Pamela and Liz had become so close; it wasn’t even clear whether today’s happening wasn’t Pamela’s idea.
Yoo was not particularly talented as a speaker, and the rest of the class was bored, except for Liz. Zack was sitting behind them. The clicky noises from there probably meant Zack readied the camcorder. Yes. “Go,” Zack whispered.
Jim pulled a piece of black cloth from his bag, got up, and climbed on the white table in front of him. He strapped the cloth over his head, stretched the arms sideways, and produced a reasonable likeness with the Abu Ghraib mock torture icon.
“Talk about ... constitutionality; any questions about how this works?” Yoo had just been asking.
“I’ve got one question,” Jim said, now standing on the table. “How long can I be required to stand her till it counts as torture?” The other students were laughing, but it wasn’t clear whether they sided more with him or with Yoo.
Yoo kept his cool. “Unfortunately, I’m going to have to end class,” he replied.
-“It’s awkward for you, but it is very uncomfortable for me, I can tell you,” Jim said.
-“You’re putting yourself in that position.”
-“I’d love to move, but each time I do, my balls get buzzed.
-“I have to end class now, I’m afraid.”
-“Please Professor,” Jim was trying again, but Yoo interrupted:
-“I’ll give you a certain amount of time before I report you to security.” He exited under the applause of the students.
A certain amount of time later---two seconds--- an administrative lady appeared, mildly agitated, and announced that anybody not enrolled in the class would have to leave, now, now and forever. Jim, who wasn’t sure his lines had worked, turned around to Zack. Zack gave him thumbs up. “You’re headed for YouTube fame,” Zack said. Jim stepped off the table.
***
Pamela Timbers studied her nails. She had become increasingly interested in her nails since Sandra O’Connor had told her that she would need them a lot on the bench, especially for Scalia’s eyes. Sandra had had a few glasses then, but Sandra had always had had a few glasses---in vino veritas is a principled line of defense for any esteemed jurist. Pamela moved her attention to the clock on the wall. There are two types of deans. Deans with a large clock on the wall, and deans with a small clock on the wall. Her’s was large.
The whole idea was to make it as awkward for him as possible. This would only work, however, if she managed to maintain a facade of torture neutrality. She would not tell him to go fuck himself. No, she would not. Although, having been forced to study this herself now--- due to Yoo’s unfortunate return from Washington---she had been appalled to learn how often rape is deployed as a method of torture. No, she would be all esteemed jurist. Nothing but subtle allusions wrapped in academic lingo. Needle his conscience like you needle a Hopi puppet.
He should enter the ante room now, she thought, and, yes, there came the noise of somebody entering the ante room. He would explain that he would have to see the Dean right away, and yes, there was a muted conversation between the soprano of her secretary and a castrato voice of Asian provenance. And, yes, the door opened, and there was the Professor of Torture.
“John,” she said, resting in her chair, “good to see you.” He didn’t have an appointment, so ‘good to see you’ was nicely out of joint, a good way to begin. She cast an inconspicuous glance at the large clock on the wall, then at her nails. “What brings you to my office?”
Yoo explained. The disruption of his class. By people that didn’t belong to his class (Jim, Zack). The time lost. The inconvenience for the other students. The assault on academic freedom. Et cetera---not mentioning Jim’s Abu Ghraib outfit---et cetera.
Pamela didn’t interrupt. She would let the conversation taper off into awkward silence.
The awkward silence commenced. “You have nothing more to say?” Pamela asked in the way serial killers are being asked one more question once all skeletons have surfaced---sidestepping her script, but it felt good, anyhow. “No,” Yoo replied flatly.
Pamela weighed her words: “My sense is that the vast majority of legal academics with a view of the matter disagree with substantial portions of your analyses regarding torture, including a great many of our colleagues at Berkeley. If, however, this strong consensus were enough to fire or sanction you, then academic freedom would be meaningless.” She paused.
He wanted to say something; she interrupted. “Does what you wrote while not at the University somehow place you beyond the pale of academic freedom today?” she continued. “Had you been merely be some professor vigorously expounding controversial and even extreme views, we would be in a familiar drama with the usual stakes. Had you been on leave marching with Nazis in Skokie or advising communists during the McCarthy era, reasonable people would probably find that an easier case still. Here, additional things are obviously in play. Gravely so.”
She stopped. What’s next? You haven’t needled him at all. His non-conscience is completely intact.
An unusual knock on the door. Clarissa burst into the room.
-”The President is on the line for you!”
-“Please elaborate,” Pamela said.
-”President Obama is on the line for you!”
-“President Barack Hussein Obama?” Pamela asked, although it was cheap.
-“President Barack Hussein Obama,” Clarissa answered helplessly.
Pamela half-rose from her chair. “John, I think I have to take that call, sorry” she said. Oouff.
***
A lab with a view. The pay was good, the canteen was okay, the other guys were usually okay, and the vista of Sangre de Cristos was an extra. Commuting was difficult, almost 20 miles to the next town, but it was a nice ride across the mesa, and the Mexican chicks in the retro bars in Santa Fe were always happy to have him back when he returned late from work. Joe always returned late from work, since he had nothing else to do. He was supposed to assist Alberrt, the resident whizz kid, but Alberrt never asked for assistance, hiding instead behind his head gear and doing his whizz-kid stuff. So Joe hang around while Alberrt worked late into the night---if it was work; it was possibly some kind of auto therapy. Being there just for emphasis, Joe played the body guard, and he made sure he looked the part with his shaven scalp.
Alberrt, with his slender body, beautiful mulatto face, blue eyes, short, cropped, light hair was sitting at his desk, the head gear in place, the blue eyes fixed on the screen. A virgin version of Tiger Woods, sort of. Joe was bored. Everybody else had left. Joe took the remote control of the Walkera model helicopter that the lab had ordered for unclear reasons---reasons were never clear at the Fisher labs---and decided to practice. He started the rotor, had the thing lift off, and hover below the ceiling. It could go up and down. It could go fast. And it could make tight turns, which it did around Alberrt’s head. It could also touch down, which it did on Alberrt’s desk. The model was practically as large as a real chopper. Alberrt ignored it.
Joe crossed the outsized room and put his arm on Alberrt’s shoulder. “Man,” he said. Alberrt reacted to Joe’s touch, he was in a good mood. “What are you doing?” Alberrt lowered his head gear. “Skinhead,” he said, “I’m into the computer of the State of Hawaii Department of Health. With System’s Administrator privileges.”
Joe looked at a large green sheet displayed on Alberrt’s screen. It said “Certificate of Live Birth” at the top, above what looked like the seal of the State of Hawaii. To the left, under “Child’s name” it said “BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA II.” According to the certificate, he was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. The mother’s maiden name was given as “Stanley Ann Dunham,” race “Caucasian,”, the father’s name as “Barack Hussein Obama,” race “African.” He had apparently been bon at 7:24 pm on the Island of Oahu. The sex was male.
The whole display was overshadowed by a popup window, which asked the question “Delete Permanently?” with the usual alternatives YES, NO, and CANCEL. Alberrt’s cursor hovered over the YES.
-“In 2001, the state of Hawaii’s health department went paperless,” Alberrt continued, speaking in cadences now. “Paper documents were discarded. The official record of Obama’s birth is now an official electronic record, as Janice Okubo, spokeswoman for the health department, informs us via the Honolulu Star Bulletin, the leading newspaper of the archipelago. I am holding this document---the only official proof of Obama’s American citizenship---in my hands, under my mouse, actually, the able mouse of a fringe hacker imposing as system’s administrator, and if its cursor clicks yes, the document is gone, and Obama has lost his citizenship.”
“Cool,” Joe observed casually, but then he got it. “Go for it man, just do it, do it, do it,”---his whole body a gesture, winning the grand slam against Kenya. “He can’t stay president without it.”
An angel walked through the room. “What holds you back?” Jim asked. Alberrt clicked ‘NO.’ “I think I need a raise,” he said. “Besides, there is too much corroborative evidence. A copy of the birth certificate resides in the vault of Obama’s Chicago office.” Alberrt’s screen changed to the image of an Obama official holding up the certificate with both hands in front of a large crowd. “The copy has no legal value independent of the health records, but provides a straw to which Obama could cling. Next”---Alberrt brought up the picture of a newspaper column, looking like an obituary column, no, a birth column---“the birth was announced on Sunday, August 13, 1961, in the Honolulu Advertiser.”
Yes, in fact, Joe could read the fine print: “Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama, 6085 Kalanianaole Highway, son, August 4.” So what?
-“Sunday, August 13, 1961 was, as you may recall, the birthday of the Berlin Wall, Alberrt continued, “and we do believe in coincidences, or don’t we?” Joe wasn’t sure; I get it, he thought.
“And lastly, there is the entry in the Honolulu Birth Start Bulletin.” Alberrt’s screen changed to the image of some newspaper clip with the heading ‘Marriage Applications, Births---Deaths.’
“Through…”Alberrt hesitated, then pointed with his index finger at his left temple, “through my brain, I have acquired system administrator privileges to all these sites, but there are backups, there is physical stuff, tapes, disks, in vaults, which I cannot access myself. And the Honolulu Advertiser still keeps a physical record. Now, this,”---Albert brought up the mug shot of a Polynesian face---“is the system administrator of the Honolulu Advertiser. He got recently divorced, and has several violations for drunk-and-driving.”
“And this is the system administrator of the Hawaii Health Department.” Another guy’s mug shot, puffed, dark complexion, a mustache, too much hair, especially on the chest, eyes drooping. “He never got married, for obvious reasons, but is about to be foreclosed on his mortgage payments, apparently spending too much money in the Waikiki Bananas, the infamous venue for exotic surfers.” For proof, Alberrt brought up the picture of a typical beach bar that labored under the weight of an enormous neon sign on its corrugated roof. Sarah Palin could possibly see it blinking ‘WAIKIKI BANANAS’ from her back porch in Wasilla, Alaska.
***
Pamela arrived early at Oakland International. It would not do to miss the plane. How many dreams come true? Well, it’s just the short list. How short is it? Five names? It’s always five names. The president doesn’t have more time. The interview was scheduled to last one hour, so it was serious. Five names. Prior unconditional probability of acceptance: twenty percent. There would be three female candidates on the list, and two males, for balance. Tomorrow we’ll know, they always leak out. The entire legal profession of the United States would speak of nothing else for days and bill the hours to its long-suffering clients.
They were to replace a female Justice. So, the males were out. Three names. Prior conditional probability, thirty three percent. Would it be a plus to look good? It’s always a factor. Okay, we are down a bit. Twenty five percent? She was up against…she knew them all, of course. Victims of---what’s the scientific word--- entropy, one by one. Gravely so. Okay, back to thirty three percent. Perhaps thirty five. Thirty six. You shouldn’t take the red-eye, you’ll look horrible tomorrow. Her appointment was at nine in the morning. Perhaps breakfast with Obama? No. He’s had breakfast already with his family. She should book a hotel room and refresh for an hour. Can one book a hotel room for an hour at six in the morning? ‘I’ll have an appointment with the President, she could say. ‘Shall I send him up when he arrives?’ the receptionist could reply. Perhaps they’ll let her use Michelle’s powder room in the east wing.
Her carry-on bag followed her on its squeaking wheels. A Delta crew strode past, bags in tow, wheels quiet. Very handsome, the pilot; even handsomer, the vice pilot. Co-pilot, not vice-pilot. Co-pilots are always handsomer than pilots, who are always handsomer than vice deans. Pamela’s law of transitivity. Check in the squeaking bag. Get rid of it.
She checked in. She got through security without a striptease. She had nothing to do.
Somebody was spinning the rotating newspaper rack at the newsstand, and it came to a halt with the Silicon Valley News under her nose. A picture of what looked like a souped-up Blackberry, accompanied by the header: It knows your thoughts: computer telepathy gains ground. I need to stop thinking, she thought. Get something to read. Take my mind off the telepathic president. She entered the shop and let her eyes wander across the racks. Muscles. Cars. Palm trees. Smut. Lewdness. Smut. Foreign Affairs. She hadn’t spent a thought on foreign affairs in a decade---con law is very much a domestic thing, and writing nine books takes a lot of time. Kissinger et al. would put her to sleep, yes.
The Magazine of Foreign Affairs displayed an oriental face, but it wasn’t Yoo’s. Older. Good black hair, roundish cheeks, arched eyebrows, large gold-rimmed glasses atop a mechanical, yet reticent smile, conservative attire. “Asian Diplomacy Transcends Confucian Thinking,” the headline ran. This mechanical, yet reticent smile. Strangely sympathetic. No, it wasn’t sympathetic objectively, anybody could smile like that, but it was sympathetic subjectively, because, because…it was familiar. The face was familiar, too. All Chinese look the same. Not true. Oh, my God, she suddenly realized.
She left the shop, found a bench, and plopped down. Everything is lost, she thought.
CHAPTER 3
The maitre d’ was very pleased with her squeaking bag, and very kind to Pamela’s coat. George didn’t bring one, since the New Tearoom was only 6 minutes and 23 seconds from his office, which he had suggested they would walk together, for fresh air and aplomb. People would recognize him in the street, obviously, and wonder who this woman was, but he was used to this. Plus, they really didn’t look like former lovers. She looked more like his shrink, or worse, or vice versa; well, not vice versa, obviously.
Charles---as the maitre d’ was apparently known---spread his fingers, raised his arms, and touched her breasts, almost. “We’re so pleased to have you with us, M’am,” Charles said. “Don’t worry,” George commented, “he doesn’t know you, he’s just doing his thing.” Charles laughed obligingly, then asked: “You’re famous, M’am?” Pamela couldn’t resist. “Yes, I’m a famous madam.” Charles laughed more obligingly. “First time you hear that reply?” Pamela asked. Now George laughed. “Her name is Pamela,” George said, “and she’ll be famous all right, starting tonight.” “Famous all right, starting tonight,” Charles came back, “that rhymes.” All three laughed now, and George clapped his hands. “Listen,” he said, “I’m a famous po-it, but nobody know-it.” General hilarity, everybody clapped.
Unlike other New York restaurants, the New Tearoom had been around for more than six months. This being Manhattan, the large cubic volume alone defined serious luxe, so Philip Stark could relax and contend himself with light wood, white walls, large windows, and serious art. Charles led them to their table. Most other tables were already occupied by a hodgepodge of new New York society, like Asians with absolutely oversized, heavily rimmed glasses, or Blues Brother’s types with perfect shades (wasn’t that Chicago?). Times have changed, Pamela thought. Their table, the best of course, was waiting for them in its pristine virginity at the upper level balcony with a view of the Central Park. Two waiters were in attendance to handle their chairs. Pamela and George sat down in style. Thick napkins, thin waiters, Pamela correlated.
“They’re all gay,” George whispered redundantly into her ear. Charles raised his eyebrows. “The usual,” George said, then touched Pamela’s hand and kissed her left ear, no, actually licked her left ear, and said, “I know it’s outdated. “What is it,” Pamela insisted, not fully at ease. “Aaron does it with crème de framboise,” Charles clarified. It had been their drink when they were young, but Pamela couldn’t help it and felt a sudden pang of jealousy. Why did he never propose to me, Pamela thought. Now it’s too late.
They sat in silence. They ordered. The Kir Royal arrived. “I should have proposed to you a long time ago,” George said, “but now it would ruin your Supreme Court career; you’d never get confirmed.”
-“Indeed,” Pamela answered helplessly. George proposed a toast, but Pamela didn’t care and drowned her glass instead.
-“Pamela, tell me, what did he say?” George finally asked.
-“I’d wondered whether you would actually ask,” Pamela replied. “It’s a no, of course.”
-“Really?”
-“He didn’t have to say no.”
-“You said no?”
-“I, I said… Hu,” Pamela replied.
-“You said hue?”
-“When in doubt, repeat the witness’ utterance.”
-“You said hue?” George repeated.
The appetizer arrived, a droplet of aubergine mousse on a square inch of wild, smoked salmon stretched over a miniature crouton, plus a bonus branch of parsley on the side, all served on an oversized, white plate, a plate as large as the moon. Negative calories, Pamela conjectured, they are playing mind games. “Eating in New York has become an art,” George said.
***
A man walks down the street, a hotdog in one hand, a paper bag in the other. A sunny day for a sunny dog with ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, onions, and pickle relish. Since Special Agent Smith had been overcome by sudden urges, he had already started on his own dog, and the ketchup was dripping. It was disgusting. He felt great.
-“George, I have to make a confession,” the female voice squeaked through the thick, white, spiraling cable into Smith’s left earpiece.
-“Not possible, Pamela, you’ve exhausted every possibility, there are no more confessions left in you,” the male voice squeaked back.
-“Well, George, it was a minor slip at the time, like, like, a Freudian slip. There is no need to confess, really, it was a short story, more flash fiction actually, and later, I didn’t want to appear pathetic, Freud is so nineteen hundreds, I didn’t want to walk on your nerves.”
-“Well, Pamela, you know, you always walk on my nerves, that’s why,” the male voice interrupted itself, “confess!”
Special Agent Smith took another bite. He had arrived at the surveillance van that was parked aslant the curb in the no stopping zone, its credentials overstated by the inscription ‘Park Avenue Chefs.’ He signaled to Jim behind the wheel, and the side door slid open to welcome him back, him and the paper bag. The bag contained three more hot dogs, one more than needed to feed everybody. The side door slid shut; the Tearoom conversation continued through the indoor speakers of the agency’s covert surveillance vehicle, where the targets were discernible on a tiny screen mounted on a rack together with more conspiracy equipment. “Confess” had been the last word of the male voice.
-“I have been pathetic enough with my stories about Barack, you know, when he and I were teaching at the same school, in Chicago,” the female voice said.
-“You have always insisted there had been nothing between Obama and you, except for the inevitable crush on your side,” the male voice continued.
-“Unanswered, the way Barack un-answers things,” the female voice confirmed.
Special Agent Smith had finished his hot dog by know, and since the others were still working on theirs, he covertly switched to the orphan dog, still waiting in the bag, a minor act of selfishness well-noticed by his partners. It was the last minor act of selfishness they would notice in their life. Smith would be the only one to make a comeback, but barely.
-“OK, but still, he puts you on a short list for the Supreme Court, invites you over to the White house for an interview.”
-“You know, at the time, he was a charming, earnest, very disciplined kid with thick black hair over at the engineering school, no need to confess…”
***
Agent Ma Man Kuang looked out of the window, as his thoughts drifted to a dated Western spy spoof, set in Honk Kong, where this undercover spy, Basque cap on his head, a white loaf under his arm, a bottle of red wine in his hand, exits a small, rundown building, casts guarded glances left and right, and while the camera zooms out, we discover that the large buildings to the left and to the right are occupied by the CIA and MI6, respectively, as indicated by huge neon signs on their respective roofs. The new Chinese Secret Service headquarters occupied the highest building on the planet, no need for a neon sign; it was a well-kept secret. “Wake up,” his colleague Yan Kuan Han interrupted him, “it could be important.”
-“…unanswered … the way Barack un-answers things,” the female target on their 4-D screens was saying, shot from three different angles, and identified as Dr. Pamela N. Timbers at the bottom of each screen. She had been under surveillance since her appearance on the US Supreme Court shortlist 24 hours ago. Dean of Berkeley law school, author of nine law books, doctor iuris, renowned slut.
-“OK, but still, he puts you on a short list for the Supreme Court, invites you over to the White House for an interview,” the male target interrupted. This target was an old acquaintance of the Service, a leading Davos man and mega-speculator, the 35th richest man in the world, who curiously shared his Hungarian name with a revisionist Marxist philosopher. Ma had in fact googled Lukacs (the philosopher) to make sure that they were not actually the same person, but they were not. True to form, the philosopher had already died.
The targets were being served the main course now, on large white plates, plates as large as the moon. Each got a minuscule piece of, yes, meat probably, grilled probably, centered in the middle to make the plate look even larger, served with a spoon of some creamy, typically western sauce, two tiny heaps of vegetables, looking suspiciously overcooked, and a branch of parsley. One single dish! Agent Ma Man signaled his dismay to agent Yan Kuan, who shook his head and said: “One single dish! You want to live in the West?”
The targets resumed their conversation.
-“You know, at the time, he was a charming, earnest, very disciplined kid with thick black hair over at the engineering school, no need to confess…”
-“Confess,”
-“President Hu of China.”
-“His middle name isn’t Hussein,” Lukacs sort of wise-cracked, while the nervous systems of Man Ma and Yan Kuan kicked into high gear.
-“With Chinese lovers, you never know.”
-“Before we drift off and talk about sex with middle names, let me get this straight,” Lukacs inquired, “you had an affair with a male person called Hu, and that person is now the President of China…”
-“Yes.”
-This wasn’t while we…”
-“No, no, George, absolutely not, scouts honor.”
-Okay,” George breathed more easily, “so this person is now the President of China.”
-“And I told Barack. I said to him: ‘listen, as much as I’d appreciate to be a Justice on the Supreme Court, there is a skeleton in my closet, and the skeleton, the present president of China, is still very much…present.”
-“You think Hu told anybody about your affair?”
-“Well, okay, no, probably not. Perhaps he told his wife,” she laughed. “I don’t know. Anyhow, I knows, Hu knows, he knows. I told Barack, look, I said, I thought about this on the redeye on the way to Washington, I said, I thought back and forth, it’s not going to work.”
-“Why did you go to Washington in the first place?”
-“I had forgotten about Hu, I wasn’t aware he’d be president of China by now. I discovered it at the airport, at the newsstand. I had already checked in.”
-“My little Cinderella.”
-“Cinderella got her prince, I didn’t.”
-“And Obama, what did he say?”
-“He was hovering in the air, as usual. Long arms, long legs. Very basketball, very Oval Office. But he did not kiss me. Then he said, Pamela, he said, I think you are right. This should stay between you and me, he said. Okay, he said. Not this time. But Hu, he said, you know, and then he said---all business---do you think Hu has still a place for you in his heart?”
“Code red,” Yan Kuan exclaimed, and picked up the phone.
***
“You really want to be a Supreme Court judge?” Lukacs continued on the tiny screen of the Park Avenue spies. All hot dogs had been finished by now, and Smith was twice as happy as his partners.
-“What’s left in store for a wise, hence middle-aged, woman? Plus, it would get me away from Berkeley.”
-“What’s wrong with Berkeley?”
“The sun always shines, and this Yoo always smiles, you know, John Yoo.”
-“Sure, torture memos.”
-“He’s back, you know.”
“Did you talk to Obama about Yoo?” he asked.
-“He couldn’t care less. He cares about the torture thing only because it could mess up his agenda.”
-“To the extend he has one.”
-“To the extend he has one.” Funny, Pamela thought, we always agree on politics.
-“Did you mention him at all?”
-“Only between the lines.”
- “And?”
-“He answered only between the lines.”
-“Well, you’ll have to return to your Yoo now, and teach him torture manners.”
-“Very funny.”
-“You need my help?”
-“How?”
-“I could help, you know.”
-“You know, Yoo got pranked, sort of. It wasn’t on the news? Well, he’s go pranked. Somebody got into his class, with the Abu Ghraib outfit. It’s on the internet, YouTube.”
Jim, the driver, was back in his seat when a NYPD officer knocked at the side window of his van. Jim lowered the window, and the cop lowered his pointed cap into Jim’s cabin. “You are mis-parked, to put it mildly,” the cop said. Jim pointed to a sticker on the dashboard with a large picture of Hizzoner Michael Bloomberg, surrounded by a sizable posse of doting women, a large signature of Bloomberg, and the message ‘EXEMPTION, HOW CAN I HELP YOU?’ The officer squinted, shook his head, and was about to say something, when the Tea Room conversation resumed inside the van.
-“You’ve been in on this prank,” the male voice squeaked.
–“Not officially, no,” the female voice squeaked back.
-“You want to get rid of him?”
-“I could give you the spiel of the esteemed jurist that I can impersonate intermittently. Yoo came to me and complained. You will remember, I am the dean. I said to him…”
-“…please…”
-“I said to him: My sense is that the vast majority of legal academics…”
-“Perhaps we could prank him some more.”
-“it would be expensive,” the female voice replied.
-“What did Attenborough say in Jurassic Park? No expenses spared,” the male voice answered.
The cop was overdoing it with his cap leaning deeper and deeper into his cabin, so Jim decided to pushed the window button. “You shouldn’t park here,” the officer reacted, withdrawing his cap and raising his voice in tandem with the window, “your exemption provides legal, but no physical protection.” Well put, Jim thought. The window shut and the cop retreated.
***
A Hummer H2 stretched New York limousine weighs roughly fourteen thousand pounds. “If you think big,” the sales nymph at Mega Coachbuilders had informed Wesley, “think bigger.” So he signed on. He was the last person in America to buy a stretched Hummer, and he’d be the last person to chauffeur one, since Hummers were out. Lots of gigs fell through when customers learned that the extra headroom and legroom, the luxury leather seating, the multiple large LCD screens and the awesome lighting – not to mention the mood-lit bar in the VIP area – would be housed by a discontinued Hummer from Government Motors, instead of, yes, what? A Toyota Prius?
This customer didn’t care about the Hummer part, but he had been very particular about Wesley arriving early, so he, the customer, would not suffer aerophobia, or whatever it was called, the fear of missing your own private plane. But when Wesley arrived too early at the Pierre, the bell captain had told him that the customer was delayed by thirty minutes and he’d be in the way with his overstretched truck and should make a lap around Central Park to kill time. So he chauffeured his Hummer around the park and listened to the police scanner that the sales nymph had thrown into the deal, but there was some squeaking interference that dimmed the cheery police talk.
-“It would be expensive,” a female voice squeaked.
-“What did Attenborough say in Jurassic Park, no expenses spared,” a male voice squeaked back. Perhaps it was about a contract job, and the police listened in?
-“I don’t know what the kids are up to, but money would help. You should start your own Jurassic Park, or, perhaps, the kids could start it for you,” the hit woman explained.
-“It was DoubleYou Bush and his gang of incompetent, ignorant, arrogant, zealous, lazy, under-endowed, newborn cronies that started this Jurassic Park. And the dinosaurs are still with us. No expenses spared. You have some ideas?” Too late, crap to hit Bush now, Wesley thought.
His cell phone tickled in his breast pocket. A text message. From this customer. ‘? r u.’ He was still several minutes away from the Pierre. He pushed the gas pedal, then decided to text back. Explain, save the tip. He got the cell-phone out again, and started typing with his fat fingers. “I have an idea,” the hit woman squeaked.
Fourteen thousand pounds of overstretched, overstated, discontinued vehicle design from Mega Coachbuilders with extra headroom and legroom, luxury leather seating, multiple large LCD screens, awesome lighting, mood-lit bar and VIP area hit the mis-parked, mis-labeled surveillance vehicle at fifty five miles per hour. 1.9 million joules of kinetic energy were being released in the space of 0.2 seconds. Two joules ended up in sound waves, of which one micro joule reached the ears of the retreating NYPD officer. He turned around. If this would be movie, it would be in slow motion, he thought.
CHAPTER 4
Laura studied the mirror next to the fridge. She had just dismissed George for getting into another tussle with the silverware. He had offered to help with the dishes, and she had turned him down again, but he had insisted this time and followed her to the kitchen, and started to load the dishwasher. She persisted, he persisted. She had won, however.
Ninety percent of Americans marry at least once, and twenty percent of all marriages are distressed at any point in time, statistically. Ours isn’t distressed, statistically. Not at all, it’s not going downhill. Texas is flat.
What are the signs? You know what the signs are. Well, she had always corrected his malapropisms and his grammar, even during their engagement, and Doubya had always gleefully accepted her advice – not that it made any difference. Yes, she had monitored his email correspondence lately, and Doubya had, in fact, ordered a luxury edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species, and, yes, she was concerned. Not that she had any problem with evolution herself, but why Darwin now? Well, it’s only a luxury edition, perhaps it’s meant as a practical joke for the coffee table. Doubya’s grin, it could be so sweet. Darwin as a pocket book would be more serious. But he had also ordered a set of magnetic poetry for the fridge. He had always been proud of not being a poet. Leaving messages on the fridge? What kind of messages?
Other signs? Yes. He had recounted the number of days they had spent at the farm during his presidency, looked it up on the internet, actually. He had traced the names of these Arabs that had committed suicide at Gitmo, unfathomable names, and learned them by heart. He had studied a map of Afghanistan and insisted on pointing out the location of Tora Bora to her. He had calculated the budget deficit at his time of taking office and concluded that there had been no deficit, as if anybody would care. He had removed the likenesses of Cheney and Rumsfeld from the front row of their picture gallery on the desk in the library. Even more vexing, she had been quite happy to see them gone, these masturbatory grins, until she suddenly realized the implications. And so on and so forth. Laura abandoned the mirror. This is not a statistical problem, she decided.
“Laura,” her husband called from the living room, “your favorite anchor has already started.” Trying to make peace. He shouldn’t feel guilty though, it hadn’t been his fault.
However, Betty Bartholomeo wasn’t exactly her favorite anchor. Betty had been his favorite anchor, until he got these bees into his head. She picked up the tea things – let’s hope he’s going to stay dry, at least, – and crossed into the living room, where Doubya was already installed on the slouch chair. She checked; the gun on the side table was gone. What happened to the gun? Why is it gone? She didn’t want to ask. Should she leave a magnetic question on the fridge?
“In a related development,” Betty Bartholomeo cheered with queer intensity, “the Spanish investigative magistrate Eloy Velasco formally requested the USA whether they were going to conduct a US inquiry against six members of the former Bush administration, among whom Alberto Gonzales, the former Attorney General, and John Yoo of the Office of Legal Counsel at the White House. Spain thinks that they, in supporting the enhanced interrogation techniques applied to Al Quaida terrorists, could have violated international law against torture.”
“It’s about us,” Doubya encouraged her, “sit down.” Laura sat down and distributed the tea cups. The TV screen split, and a new LYNX face appeared next to Bartholomeo, a very handsome face, more lover than reporter, blithe in anticipation of its first appearance on America’s noisiest network. “Fernando Inglesias is our new correspondent in Madrid,” Betty explained. “Fernando, you are looking great tonight. Fernando has the latest.”
-“Good evening, Betty,” Fernando replied willingly.
-“Fernando, is there any chance that Gonzales could be tried by the Spanish authorities, or is there any chance you could reveal the address of your beauty parlor – just curious,” Betty continued. (Unbeknownst to Laura, Lynx was experimenting with the surprise factor, and Betty was fully scripted; the green surprise line would, in fact, jump, and the fat white graph of receptiveness would get a kick; the effects were short-lived, however.)
-“Well, it depends,” Fernando replied with a heavy Spanish accent, but then his perfect teeth broke into a wild, Latin grin, and it took his face some time to look fair and balanced again. Precious seconds were lost, or gained.
-“Spain could indict them if the US refuses to prosecute them,” he said.
-“So the ball is now in Obama’s court; what would be the charges?”
-“Here in Spain, torture constitutes a crime against humanity,” Fernando answered.
-“That sounds fairly serious,” Betty cheered, “I mean, ridiculous. What would be the sentence if they are convicted?”
-“Here in Spain, they could be sentenced to life in prison.”
-“But not in America?”
-“In America, they could be sentenced to death.”
“But that’s not going to happen,” Betty cheered.
-“Well, the Spains are not friends of capital punishment. The Texans, they are friends of capital punishment.”
-“Fernando, I think we have to leave it there,” Betty cut him off. The Latin looker disappeared, and a riqué soda commercial with untested allusions to non-standard sex hitched the screen.
-“Obama executing Gonzales,” what a show, Laura said, trying to laugh.
-“I had Fredo on the line; he’s not his former self,” Bush replied. “He can’t find a job, he’s scared, actually.”
-“He’s not going to spill the beans, I hope,” Laura said.
-“Well, I said to him, look Fredo, you always told me that everything was legal, that Yoo had it all figured out. So why are you scared now?”
-“And what did he say?”
-“He said he does not trust Obama.”
-“Good, thinking,” Laura observed.
-“Obama might refuse to take the case, and provide an excuse for the Spains to ask for an extradition.”
-“Obama would never dare. Texas would secede from the Union. Civil war.”
-“Obama has a Lincoln complex, he may go for it … Well, you know, Fredo did fuck up. This whole torture thing, the suicides.”
-“We had thousands of legal suits working for us.”
-“If I have to presume that the man with the wild eyes and the turban is innocent, how can I treat him worse than a Caucasian suit in a suit?”
-“We kept America safe, we were busy.”
-“Well, the buck stopped with me.”
-“The buck stops with what, you? Truman said that, right?”
-“NineEleven happened on my watch, you know. We did not keep America safe.”
-“Well, we did our best, and I am not responsible for it.” Laura’s nerves pounded like a bad tooth. She had no choice, she had to say it: “And you just, you just said Spains. It isn’t Spains, it’s Spanish, Spanish.
-“Well,” Doubya defended himself, “This Fernando reporter said ‘Spains,’ and that was on your Lynx channel.”
-“This isn’t my Lynx channel. This is your Lynx channel. And you just shut up.” She knew she was ridiculous.
-“Spanish, Spanish. Expletive deleted.”
-“Why can’t you just say ‘fuck’,” Doubya asked.
-“Fuck,” she said, “fuck.”
-“Okay, it’s our Lynx channel,” Bush said, and killed it.
***
Pamela was delayed for her appointment with Liz by the budget meeting. She had taken quite some heat for her decision to spend two hundred kay on the school’s rebranding effort, with twenty five kay going to this consultant for coming up with a new moniker for the school. The consultant had first taken the money, and then suggested to drop ‘Boalt Hall’ from the school’s name, which, as some mathematical talent had calculated, had cost the school 2,778 dollars per lost letter. Yes, it had been foolish; she had been needlessly distracted by the aborted Supreme Court nomination and by her fatigue with law deaning, and with the Hotel California in general. The twenty five kay had made the local news today, and she had to stand there, outside, on the parking lot, with everybody watching, and grinning, and inform the microphone from KPFB that the money was well-spent because people will now understand that the law school is tied to UC Berkeley, and that they had to pay the consultant because staff members could not take the time away from other duties to do the work, and keep a straight face all the while, and she hated it, and herself, and she hated the carpet in the budget conference room that John Yoo, him of course, had dubbed Jackson Pollack, sic, behind her back, not Jackson Pollock, mind you, as if it was her fault.
Clarissa had a few phone messages from the usual liars who work the phone to avoid email traces, but there was one unusual message, urgent, according to Clarissa, from a Mister Hu, or more precisely from Hu’s assistant, a minister apparently, because Mr. Hu was too busy, president of something, but it would be important to get his name right, H, U, and also the message itself. ‘HOLLAND & FRANCE & AFVKDFG.’ Pamela’s mood changed tack.
Pamela sailed into her office, where Liz was already waiting. “Holland, and France, and A F V K D F G,” Pamela said by way of greeting to her niece.
-“Holland, and France, and A F V K D F G,” Liz echoed. Liz was not always sure of Pamela’s sense of humor, and repetition would kick the can down the road.
-“Some men, when they reach the climax, are given to shouting the same phrase over and over again,” Pamela said.
-“So you know what it means,” Liz asked.
-“This particular man never did,” Pamela said. “He would be grunting a bit, but concentrate on the physical part of the process, to great effect.”
-“Should I guess who he was?” Liz asked.
-“No, no, please don’t.”
-“Should I guess what it means?”
-“Holland,” Pamela replied, “Hope our love lasts and never dies.”
-“And he said this in France, right?” Liz asked.
-“Not so fast. Friendships remain and never can end.”
-“Friendships remain and never can end,” Liz repeated, matching the letters in her mind. “I think you are cheating.”
-“In that…?”
-“In that you know the answers already.”
-“Talent borrows, genius steals,” Pamela replied.
-“Well, you know, if I’d say, ‘genius borrows, talent steals,’ that would also work,” Liz retorted.
-“But less well — in its prim confirmation of the expected…,” Pamela started the sentence before Liz interrupted, “…or its righteous refusal of the reversal.”
-“Well-put, Liz,” Pamela lauded; they were soul nieces, really.
-“However, ‘A F V K D F G’?” Liz asked, turning the tables.
With all these humiliations, this wasn’t the day that Pamela would admit to anything, or at least anything more.
-“All…fervently…verified…keepers…drown…for…good.
No, Abnormal, F, f-word…I think I’m onto something here.”
-“Aha,” Liz said.
-“Your turn,” Pamela said.
-“Can I use your computer,” Liz asked.
She sat down on the chair behind the dean’s desk, awoke Pamela’s dormant laptop, and googled ‘A F V K D F G.’
Surprisingly, there was only one, unique answer. It linked to a French facebook page, “pour que les filles puissent rentrer dans les vestiaires au rugby” with pictures of hunky rugby men, naked or in jockstraps, mostly with semi-erections, but not quite, well, what else could you expect from the French.
-“He’s one of these?” Liz asked with a touch of envy. Pamela got behind Liz to get a good look, studied the screen carefully, extensively, man by man, but was clearly baffled. “Not him,” she said, “none of them.” Then she regained her composure. “But close.”
-“I’ll search for ‘A F V K D F G’ on the page,” Liz said.
And yes, there it was, ‘afvkdfg,’ next to a few English words in the otherwise French text. The words read: ‘Bugs in your office.’
They fell silent. “Quite a paper chase,” Liz finally said.
-“We need some fresh air,” Pamela said to nobody in particular.
They left the school and walked across the campus in the general direction of the west gate, past the music library, and past the older Beaux Arts buildings, which had been built, or at least paid for by Phoebe Hearst, who had adopted the Berkeley campus in retaliation against the Stanford clan. Phoebe had also given birth to William Randolph Hearst, him of Citizen Kane, who had also contributed to the campus until the Great Depression struck and he got distracted by his plans for Hearst Castle.
“Don’t you like this baroque insistence on vistas punctuated by symmetry, eye-catching monuments, axial avenues, uniform cornice heights, and functional clarity, providing a harmonious ensemble and suggesting a somewhat theatrical nobility of accessible charm?” Liz ventured.
-“You must have read this somewhere,” Pamela replied.
-“Talent borrows, genius steals. It's not true, though.”
-“But it would do well in the syllabus for my opinion UC Berkeley vs. Hotel California, five to four.”
-“You are not getting carried away,” Liz ask, “how do you know Obama will nominate you again?”
-“There is something in me,” Pamela breezed, then changed the subject. “Holland, France, I think we marked enough miles between us and the bugs, let's do the 007 stuff.”
Pamela opened her over-sized purse and produced a black credit card. “Everybody is on board?” she asked, while the card sparkled in the Californian sun.
-“It's Jim, Zack, Leona, and myself. Everybody is very passionate, except for Jim, who is more passionate about sex.”
-“That’s great, Liz,” Pamela said, “how many girls can say that.”
-“I had to promise a lot.”
-“More than you can handle?”
-“It interferes with my studies. I’ve decided to read all Supreme Court opinions ever written.”
-“I've done that, niece, and it didn't … hinder at all. I would read one opinion, feel aroused, make love, read the next one, feel aroused, make love, ad infinitum. At least I tried. Infinity is such an elusive concept,” Pamela said, then, interrupting herself, “perhaps I tried too hard — given the results.”
-“Not every man can appreciate constitutional law,” — Liz knew.
-“Look,” Pamela said, “just let me know if Jim needs additional … input. Input is not the right word. You know what I mean. He's such a handsome boy.”
-“Sure he is.”
-“Zack is very handsome, too.”
-“Sure he is.”
-“Well, Jim is handsome, and Zack is good-looking, there are subtle differences.”
-“How about us?” Liz asked, “Leona and me?”
-“Well, you are both gorgeous, that's different.”
There was a whiff of fail about Liz, but Pamela ignored this.
-“Just let me know,” Pamela insisted, “if I can help out with Jim. Don't be shy.”
-“OK, let's do the 007 stuff,” Liz said, she had to stop this. “We also found somebody for Yoo, almost the same name, Yoon, Chang Man Yoon, also Korean.”
-“Good,” Pamela said. “Good-looking?”
-“Handsome. But we have to pay him,” Liz cautioned.
-“He works as a prostitute?”
-“Stop it,” Liz said.
-“Well,” Pamela said, still holding the sparkling black card in her hand, “this card is a Black Card. And it's loaded. One million dollars. It works with every ATM in America, including Canada and Mexico, and it was issued by Rahn and Bodmer, the oldest bank in Zurich still in private hands.”
-“How can you get this done?” Liz was baffled.
-“The arm of an almost nominee to the Supreme Court reaches far.”
-“You want me to abscond to Rio?”
-“Your choice,” Pamela replied while retrieving a piece of paper from her purse. “And this is the pin code. The card is already activated, I hear. In fact, I activated it myself for an expensive box of macaroons, at the new Ladurée outfit on Oxford Street — so much for the integrity of a Supreme Court hopeful. Well, George will forgive me. So, in fact, will you, even though you are getting only 999,951 dollars. Not enough to abscond to Rio, I fear.”
-“Ladurée has come to Berkeley?” Liz asked.
-“Because of me, I guess.”
***
While Pamela and Liz were conspiring in the bright Californian daylight, Professor John Yoo was making his way from the Law School across the campus to the parking lot behind Dwinelle Hall. He had had enough of the tendentious bumper stickers that these backbiters would stick onto his Lexus, like ‘Yoo-hoo, I’m ready for my smooch’ (with the picture of a fat woman in an indecent dress, obviously a silly allusion to Timbers), or the drab ‘Torture Yoo now,’ with litigious implications, or some such, they weren’t even funny. A colleague had warned him that these sticker stickers, once they’ve run out of material, might actually scratch scratches on his car, perhaps even meaningful ones, letters or slogans, which would cost a fortune to repair. So he had decided to abandon the parking lot next to the school and use a distant location where his car would go unrecognized.
Thinking of the devil, there she stood, Dean Timbers, expansively, as always, in the middle of the cross-campus pathways, gesturing with a credit card in her hand to her dongseng Liz Nachtrieb — a shame so much talent was getting wasted so much. Should he avoid them? No, he was no coward. He would venture past and say hello, if necessary.
***
Pamela felt again in her purse, and produced a passport, a Swiss passport so to see, handed it to Liz, and said: “This is the passport that you need if you lose the card, or if you need more money.” She reached again into her purse, but had trouble to find what she was looking for. She shook the purse, shook it again, then swung it back and forth, and hit somebody behind her back. She must have hit him right in the face. “I’m so sorry, are you okay,” Pamela said automatically to her victim. She finally recognized John Yoo, or what was left of him, and grasped for air, embarrassed as she was, but recovered quicker than the stricken Yoo and said “I won’t do it again, John.” Yoo was clearly at loss for words. He touched various parts of his moon-shaped face, as if to feel whether any blood had settled in any craters. “You’re still alive, John,” Pamela assured him, she could read thoughts. Yoo stopped his self-exploration. “Ladies,” he said stiffly, turned around, and departed.
“Let’s hope he’s not telepathic,” Pamela said. She had found them, the keys. “And here are the universal car keys. They work on any car,” Pamela continued, and handed two little gadgets to Pamela, funny-looking, multi-colored devices. Liz pocketed the keys before they got any chance to sparkle in the Californian sun.
CHAPTER 5
Fisher had had installed this ringtone two years ago, for him, in better times, when they were young. Dumm, dum-dum, dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum, the neat little wake-up call in G-major from Mozart’s Kleine Nachtmusik. “Hello,” Claude answered (not in G-major). A pair of cobalt irises radiated from the screen, no need for Vladimir to speak. “He’s so busy,” Claude apologized, “I can’t insert myself…you know.” “Second time I’m calling,” Vladimir’s irises warned as they paled until the screen went grey. Don’t call him Vladimir when you talk to Fisher, Claude warned himself, it was a joke Fisher didn’t like.
He traveled the infinite hallways past Fisher’s infinite art gallery, past 23 Rothko paintings that Fisher had snitched from the superstitious jaws of Bunny Melloncamp (the banking dowager), past a row of abstract statues (bulges, edges, outcroppings) in which intimi would recognize Fisher’s likeness in various states of arousal, past the last security post (an attractive hunk with broad lips in ultra-black gear, Velcro straps around any conceivable part of his body, two golden earrings, the piece very much in evidence), stopped at the transparent crystal doors with its hand-crafted bas-relief of Fisher’s family crest (a lion and an eagle fighting for a bunch of grapes, supposedly descending down five generations of South-African wine growers, possibly ad-libbed by Fisher himself), peaked through, and discerned the Führer — that wasn’t a joke and it could get him fired — in a state of latent communicability, walking up and down the office, talking to God or to himself. Claude pushed the left wing of the door, gently, slowly, until Fisher became aware of his intrusion, and appeared to consent.
Claude entered, but Fisher, with a flip on his left Weitzman loafer, had already turned his attention back to the screens, where the ratings would dance to the tune of various LYNX channels. “What time is it?” Fisher asked without warning. Claude gazed at a large digital clock on the wall, and quoted: “five minutes to six; five minutes to six pm.”
-“It’s time, let’s go.” Fisher answered.
Claude wouldn’t ask but follow the leader, who took him to the crystal doors, waited for Claude, who hastened to open them properly, continued apace toward the private elevator around the corner, entered the elevator, waited for Claude to follow, and finally uttered the words “News Productions.” Claude pushed a large chrome button with red illuminating halos: ‘- 16.’ Fisher, when he had gracefully agreed to erect his new LYNX tower in New York City, had been showered with building exemptions, including the permit to carve a basement 20 floors deep into the granite rock of Manhattan Island. It was supposedly nuke-proof, and special LYNX teams were working ‘round the clock on the pre-production of Armageddon material next to Fisher’s personal cellars at the bottom level. LYNX would live to tell the tale. News Productions at five fifty-five, they were headed for Betty’s six o’clock show. The ride would take 25 seconds. Would he have enough time to squeeze in Vladimir?
-“Baltimore called,” he started.
-“Any progress with the brain caps?” Fisher asked.
-“He didn’t say.”
-“Perhaps you could deduce his answer from the hue of his irises,” Fisher flipped. “They transcend thousands of miles to beam at you from the bottom of your B-phone. They know.”
-“B-phone?” Claude asked.
-“I said B-phone for the benefit of alliteration. Donald Duck, Ronald Reagan, alliterations sell. An I-phone eyes, a B-phone beams.”
-“He called about the Birther thing, Obama’s birth certificate, they are still waiting for the green light.”
-“ Osama Obama, come to think of it,” Fisher remarked. The elevator car slowed down; a soft artificial voice announced their arrival; Fisher turned around on his Weizman loafers. “Kassa, kassa,” he cheered to himself.
Fisher’s appearance in the news production control room three minute before the gong wasn’t really helpful, but the team was used to it, and Carmel, the director, tended to see it as a test of his cool under fire. The countdown was running. “Put up some footage of Western movies,” Fisher said to Paul, the producer, “Rio Grande, High Noon, that sort of thing, but in color, of course,” while he blew kisses to Betty Bartholomeo across the glass pane, Betty, who could not possibly see him with the bright studio lights on her face.
Whining horses, stage coaches, outlaws, table rocks appeared on various screens of the glass cockpit. The ratings, still dormant, were also on display, waiting for the show to begin.
Betty started with the usual macro news, rarely beneficial to Fisher’s ratings these days, and moved to the latest twists in the Bush saga. Fisher apparently knew (“I have my spies”).
“Get ready for compositing the Crawford signal,” Fisher said to Carmel, and pointed to the lower left corner of the glass cockpit, where Bill Smith, the Crawford correspondent, appeared next to a cactus. “Get an outlaw, and a posse of Real Americans, charging in pursuit. Dust, deputies, the works.”
“In a related development,” Betty went, “the Spanish government is about to strengthen the provisions regarding the prosecution of foreigners. Foreigners can no longer be prosecuted in Spain, unless their crime is related to Spain, or they are on Spanish soil. This means that the prosecution of Alberto Gonzales, the former Attorney General, and John Yoo, of the Office of Legal Counsel under the Bush administration, cannot continue, since their crimes were not committed on Spanish soil. From Texas, with the latest, is our Crawford correspondent…”
In the meantime, the signal from Crawford had captured the primary screen with Smith showing off a wide-rimmed cowboy hat and gleaming riding boots, the left boot casually posed on a free-wheeling tree stump. He stood next to a cactus, or, more precisely, the cactus stood next to him. In the background, a drab Texan town.
-“Bill,” Bartholomeo asked in voice overlay, “it should come as a relief to the former Bush administration that the Spains shut up” (it was all ‘Spains’ now on LYNX, to better connect with the viewer and split the infinitive when possible).
-“Well, actually, no, Betty,” Smith replied. “It’s Code Red here now. The security detail of Bush himself has been upgraded, and Crawford is all up in arms with Secret Service SUV’s patrolling the street.”
“Go,” Fisher said to Carmel. Carmel pushed a few buttons on the video switcher, and Smith, hat, boots and cactus got lifted by an equine swell, a righteous posse, no, the righteous posse charging past the side wings of an authentic frontier town in pursuit of the evil outlaw. Dada among the basic emotions, a slight advance of the Fisher formula. “A small step for the Fisher formula, but a big step for mankind,” Fisher tried, but then caved in ad said: “De-compose.” Dust, deputies, and horses were replaced by three real-life SUV’s driving down Crawford’s main street. “Get them to do something funny,” Fisher said to Carmel. Create a rotary and let them circle around it.” A traffic circle appeared in due course at the end of main street. The SUV’s entered it one by one, then chased each other as they rotated around the circle. Some hilarity among the basic emotions. Fisher gaze drifted around the studio, he had lost interest. “Let’s go,” he said to Claude.
-“How long do you want this to continue,” Claude asked with a touch of innocense in his voice. “A circle implicates infinity.”
-“Bah,” Fisher answered, and grabbed Claude by the arm.
They strode back to the elevator. This isn’t the moment to insert Vladimir again, Claude thought, hoping to tickle Fisher’s telepathic antennae. It worked. “What’s the budget, the Birther thing, remind me,” Fisher said. Claude had no idea of the budget, nobody had told him. “Still the old figure,” he sidestepped.
-“What’s the old figure, remind me,” Fisher insisted.
Could Claude sheepishly admit his ignorance? Possibly not, his side-stepping had committed him, Fisher would ask how he could be aware of the existence of an original figure and of the fact that the figure was still valid but unaware of its size, and then draw more shifty replies and lock him up in his contradictions and throw away the key.
-“Five million” Claude improvised with bad timing. Fisher hesitated, the timing had given Claude away.
-“Green light,” Fisher then said, as if to make a point.
***
5:58pm. The Moody’s downgrade was scheduled for six pm sharp. He brought up the CHF-EUR window on his Bloomberg and cast a short glance at the upper right corner of the terminal, where Michael, or at least his likeness, used to ask ‘Can I help you’ in the good old days — this was before Michael had traded the helm of his financial news network for hiz zonership at City Hall in 2002. Michael’s empathy with his befuddled users — the system had been developed in the 80’s and was command-line based, there were about five thousand commands — had been certified by his signature and a personal email address. The lowliest client could go directly to the CEO. An organization as flat as a pizza. It had worked, in fact. He had tested Michael’s feedback a few times and always received personal answers, but then perhaps only billionaires got personal answers, or it was a friendship thing; he had once asked him point blank, but was deflected by Michael’s sketchy shyness, as if he had asked him about the rates for black-card prostitutes. (They were still friends, of course, he was number 14, and Michael number 10 on the American Forbes charts.)
How many notches, the downgrade. The markets had priced in three notches — that was his gut feeling. Plus, a contact at Moody’s that he would never hire had told Ron that they were talking three notches, but could raise the stakes. Stick their neck out. Sure, these geniuses, that’s what geniuses do, that’s what they’ve always done, right? Four notches would nudge the markets, five notches would be nice. The boys in the trading rooms would hit the sell buttons as if there was no tomorrow. He wasn’t supposed to do this, of course, hitting buttons; Hans, Gerald, and this new guy, Perry, they were all go. He was supposed to think deep thoughts and be in touch with world leaders. But he liked the physicality of it. Six pm, sharp. There should be no delay, and there wasn’t. BBB, negative outlook for Irish sovereign debt. Five notches. Each hit of control b would sell him 50 million Euros in exchange for Swiss Franks. Hit, hit me with your rhythm stick, Pamela had also liked the song. Doing things with your hands — trivial to program, of course — fun. The white Euro-line stumbled down the green coordinate steps from 1.3561 to 1.341 within four seconds, two seconds more than he needed for nineteen control-b’. Don’t exceed one billion, you’re superstitious. Master of the universe. Well, bullshit, this was an easy game of musical chairs for anybody with balls and a good credit line. Let somebody cry ‘fire’ and get seated before the music stops. The Euro at 1.3345 now, ten seconds into the game. We will see a technical reaction presently; the fastest money will chicken out and go skiing. Switzerland. Yes, the Euro graph halted its descent and started to climb, 1.336. Twenty seconds. 1.341. Forty seconds. 1.342. Two minutes. The white line danced forward. Stuck at 1.342. Stalled. Stalled. Of Course. Ireland in trouble, Club Med on the brink, the Euro doomed, Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy facing the squad together, a last embrace. ‘Fire!’ The entire German Mittelstand charging for the exits. Give us the Dee-Mark back! They had profited from the Euro more than anybody else. Now they forsook it for the Swiss Frank. The stampede would continue for several days, but that was okay, it wasn’t his horizon. Quick bucks are more fun, especially when you don’t need them. He would sell into the next downswing. 1.335. The Euro diving again. There should be an app for the appropriate background music. Tell Michael (who would disapprove). 1.324. The next resistance would be at 1.31, or 1.30. Let’s see what happens at 1.31. The Euro dived through the green coordinates like a stone. Okay, 1.30, then. 1.305, still no resistance. Let’s get out now. He switched to control-s, and stuffed his Franks into the throats of the desperate Krauts, batch by batch. There was something sexual to it.
The door moved, and Ron’s head appeared in the opening. A boy caught masturbating under the shower. Well, Ron couldn’t see his screen from there. One last control-s. Done. A hasty movement, and the screen boasted the ambivalent message of Popper’s Open Society. Ron must think he’d been watching internet porn, but that was okay, who wasn’t. Let’s change the subject. Let’s show him the rich are not different.
“Ron,” he said with his off-broadway joviality, “let’s try the new TV.” He handed the new zapper to Ron, who had possibly other things on his mind or wanted to go home. Ron obliged of course, pushed the new power button, and the new flatscreen came alive. Somebody with a knowledge of George’s weak spot must have had programmed the thing already, since it came up with Bartholomeo’s LYNX show. “I think there’s something wrong with the new TV,” Ron said.
Lukacs covered his face with both hands. “I programmed it myself,” he admitted.
-“Did you tell Val?” Ron asked--Val Fuster, head of Mount Sinai Heart, George’s cardiologist.
-“I told the local LA meeting.”
-“Lynx Anonymous?”
-“Yes.”
-“Shall we switch to Comedy Central?”
Lukacs was about to nod; one last gulp of the screaming Lynx queen. She was talking about Yoo and Gonzales and the new provisions nixing their prosecution in Spain. So Bush is home dry. Of course. George had lost all his battles against Bush, why not this one, the last one, the battle against time. Isn’t it always lost, this battle? Death and taxes. But then this Crawford reporter appeared on the screen, all hat, no cattle, Smith. Smith was so inane, his suicide would be funny. Smith had enchanted the world during eight glorious Bush years, and he wouldn’t give up now.
-“It’s code red here now,” Smith said. “The security detail of Bush himself has been upgraded, and Crawford is all up in arms with Secret Service SUV’s patrollin’ the streets.” There’s a funny authenticity to Crawford, Lukacs thought, whining horses, cowboys, outlaws, dust, perhaps Bush pays for this, but then a posse of black SUV’s appeared and drove down main street, looking quite real for a while.
-“How so?” Bartholomeo asked Smith.
-“Well, the Spains haven’t given up, yet. They simply require that an indictment cannot go forward unless the suspect is actually on Spanish soil. And this raises the specter of illegal rendition. There are many well-heeled Bush haters out there that could sponsor an abduction of Gonzales, of Yoo, or even Bush himself, to Spain. Remember, the Hungarian-born hedge fund star George Lukacs spent 150 Million out of his own pocket just to have Bush defeated in 2004. He failed, of course, but a rendition could be cheaper. Lukacs could bring out the checkbook again.”
-“But Bill, isn’t this illegal?” Bartholomeo persisted.
-“Well, like it or not, torture is seen as a crime against humanity, and in such cases the type of rendition is immaterial, worldwide,” Smith replied.
George looked at Ron. “Talking of the devil.”
-“Everybody knows you, even in Crawford, it’s the price you pay ...” Ron coasted on George’s vanity.
-“What do you think it’ll cost to get Bush to Spain? Thirty Million?”
-“Thirty million. Why not? Sounds right to me,” Ron said.
-“Perhaps we should stop fooling around with the Berkeley prankers and go for the kill. Render Bush to Spain. If it’s legal.” George rolled his Hungarian eyes.
He turned his attention ever so gently back to the Bloomberg terminal and switched from the Popper text back to the trading window. He hit control-r. A number appeared in the little box labeled ‘Returns’. Twenty-nine million and some change.
-“Come here,” he said to Ron, pointing to his screen, “have a look.”
Ron appeared behind Lukacs’ back.
-“See that number?” — George couldn’t quite suppress his pride.
-“Sir, didn’t you promise not to do this,” Ron said, very much a butler now.
-“Green light,” Lukacs shouted, “Green light. Get it done. Green light.”
Ron got hold of the remote and killed Betty’s show.
***
The buzzer rang, and then the cell-phone. Somebody at the gate and this new agent on the line. “Sure, we always expect FedEx parcels, that’s what you do when you are…when everybody knows you,” Laura had to explain, not for the first time — really, the security upgrade wasn’t an untrammeled success. Sixteen agents around the clock, the counter-sniper support unit in ballistic gear on the roof of the guest house, the tactical perimeter alert unit with new barbed-wire fences around the property, elsewhere be-suited agents in matching ties — except for the pond with the secret frogman and his matching snorkel. Lukacs had spent 150 Million out of his own pocket in 2004. A rendition would be cheaper. Very helpful, Bill Smith, to bring this up. Three different Al Qaida branches, apparently unaware of each other, had already sent threats, one from Wasilla, Alaska. Lukacs had sent no threats, but his spokesperson had pointedly refused to comment. Perhaps he’ll come through the pond and render us in a submarine. Ludicrous. Doubya had acted as head of state, the strongest diplomatic immunity in the world, nobody could touch him. The service had to do their job, obviously, a rendition would be cheaper...
The FedEx van arrived with this new head agent mounted to the passenger seat; Bobby Battista, a rung up from the last guy. How can a sensible person call himself Bobby? Battista grabbed the parcel from the FedEx man: “It’s from Amazon, M’am, did you order this?”
How was she to know? “What does it say the content is?”
-“It says ‘Printed Material.’ We x-rayed it, it’s printed material. No bomb. Addressed to the President.”
-“No kidnapping device under remote control?” she joked. Battista hesitated.
-“Well, perhaps my husband ordered it…” she tried, “…the kidnapping device,” but her joke had already stumbled.
-“Shall I open it for you, in case, you know…” Battista said, while the FedEx man pushed his signature pad against her breast and waved his pen. A bookwork appeared in Battista’s hands, with two Tyrannosaurus Rexes on its front cover. Darwin’s Origin of Species. Laura snatched the tome, but Battista had already noticed.
-“Mr. Battista,” she changed the subject quickly, “I’d like to block incoming calls from a specific person on my mobile, how am I to do this?”
-“Never done it before?”
-“I didn’t have to,” she said, dropping Darwin onto the porch and handing her Motorola Razr to Battista — she couldn’t remember who gave it to her, wasn’t it Jack Abramoff, before he went to prison?
-“Who gave you this phone,” Battista said, pausing, as if he knew. “It’s outdated. Why don’t you get yourself a new one? The new Windows Seven phone from Microsoft, that’s cool.”
-“We would have the same problem with the new Windows Seven phone from Microsoft, wouldn’t we?”
“That’s a fact,” Battista replied a split second too late. But he got to work on the Razr. He pushed some buttons, then some more buttons.
-“How can you block a person if you don’t know his number,” Laura asked, suspicious now.
-“The phone is locked. It’s locked. It won’t unlock,” Battista admitted. Laura took the phone, unlocked it, and handed it back. Battista pushed some more buttons.
“It’s the Darwin, isn’t it,” Doubya’s voice interrupted them from behind. He had appeared on the porch and put is his on hand her shoulder.
-“Why didn’t you go get it yourself, be a man,” she quipped, pointing to the tome on ground, “Battista handed me this book as if it was my fault.”
-“I should have known,” Doubya said, picked up the book and disappeared inside. Her ploy had failed, but she had to keep up appearances now, so she turned to Battista and blinked at the phone. Battista pushed its buttons again. 15 seconds had elapsed in the meantime. She could read faces, especially Secret Service faces.
-“It’s locked again, right?” she tried to say.
Ever so gently, she removed the phone from Battista’s hand and made her way across the porch back into the house. Doubya, already immersed in his Darwin, had curled up on the sateen slouch chair in the living room. She made it to the next chair and plunked down. The cuckoo clock was ticking on the wall. An angel stumbled through the room. The landline rang. I can’t handle this any longer she tried to think, but the phone knew better. Doubya ignored her thoughts. She got up again.
-“I have the President on the line for you,” the blithe voice of Katie Johnson, Obama’s secretary, chimed, as the President’s voice blended in. “Laura,” he said, “so good to hear your voice. How are you doing?”
-“Fine, Barack, fine. Of course. Great.” She was too tired to return his question.
-“I’m calling to learn whether everything is all-right.”
-“Sure, Barack, thank you for your attention. Of course, we are fine, everything is all-right.”
-“Your security upgrade, it’s working out?”
-“Well, you know how it is. The frogman in the pond. The snipers on the guest house. Like in the old days.”
-“Mark Sullivan tells me he’s specially selected, what’s his name, like this CNN anchor of yore, Battista, sure, Bobby Battista, to head your upgraded security detail, a very fine officer, I’m told. Best of the best. Male, this one, ha-ha.”
It’s a conspiracy, she thought. “You think it’s really necessary?” she asked.
-“You mean Sullivan should have picked a fed say
-, male person?”
-“Come on. We should be safe without the whole razzmatazz.”
-“Well, you know, you never know.”
-“George acted for the nation, as the head of state. He should be safe in America.”
-“I think we can trust the Secret Service. Well, we have to, ha-ha” — laughing his Kenyan laugh again.
-“He should be safe in America,” she insisted.
-“Well, that’s why I’m calling, Laura, to make sure you feel safe.”
-“Feeling safe isn’t the same as being safe. Are we safe, Barack?”
-“In retrospect you wouldn’t notice the difference, unless, you know, something went wrong. I wouldn’t worry if I were you.”
-“Well, Barack, you call it means you worry, too.”
-“I know, you know, I feel your pain.”
-“The rule of law, isn’t that protection enough?”
-“There’s a legal side, and a physical side to it.”
-“Barack, abduction is a terrible crime.”
-“Sure Laura, sure, it is. Problem is, once they get him, under international law, the type of rendition doesn’t quite, you know, make it when it comes to, you know…”
She waited for Obama to unfinish his sentence. “What do you mean. George is no criminal.”
-“Absolutely, Laura, absolutely, that’s what I’m trying to convey. He has the full protection of the law.”
-“George is no criminal. He is the former president.”
-“Of course not, of course not, Laura. I would never say that. But enhanced … enhanced … you know … you ask somebody pointedly … you never knows, especially with the Spains, even if you mean well.”
-“How about Texas?”
-“In Texas it’s okay, of course, that’s why we want to keep him in the country.”
- “It’s illegal in America.”
-“Fortunately it is, sure it is, trust me,” he trailed. She could hear his voice migrating to the next phone call. A split second elapsed, and she had hang up on the President.
A sudden pain shot up from her spine and hit her skull. Tiny stars danced across the room. The cuckoo clock on the wall chimed the hour, “Spains-Spains, Spains-Spains.” Doubya slouched in his chair.
She made it to her chair. The T-Rexes on George’s book came alive, danced, fell in love. She got up again, squatted down next to her husband, and grabbed the Darwin with both hands. “Stop reading that book. Please. Not now.” The dinosaurs weighed tons in her hands and slipped to the ground. Tears rolled over her cheeks.
-“Laura, what happened to you.”
-“Nothing.” Her tears soaked the smitten reptiles.
-“What’s wrong with you?”
-“What’s wrong with you?”
-“I’m reading, I’m learning. A lot. To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under Heaven.” She recognized the reborn smile that he had worn after his 40th birthday, when he went dry.
-“George, let me tell you this, the buck did not stop with you, it stopped with Cheney.”
-“I know.”
-“You’re quite innocent.”
-“You think that’s an excuse?”
-“Innocence is always an excuse.”
-“Like in Gitmo, right?”
-“Look George, this is not only about you. It’s about the red states, the blue states, a lot of people. It’s about Texas, America. Us. Everything will fall apart.”
-“Everything will come together.”
-“Lukacs will catch us and send us to Spain.”
-“Perhaps we should go, explain.”
The phone rang. Doubya picked up the book. Where is Hussein’t gun, Laura thought. She rose again.
An important fundraiser. Hundred kay a plate. For the depleted coffers of the GOP. “Hold the line,” she said.
-“George,” she pleaded across the room, “you loved fundraising, it’s hundred kay per plate, it’s an honor, they cannot find anybody else to perform at that level, you’re the only one. They need the money.” A cloud of comprehension shaded Doubya’s smile.
-“Fund raising, your best suit. It’s for the GOP.” That was an error. His eyes alighted.
-“Too busy,” he said, nodding with his book the slow American nod of affirmation, “I have to learn so much.”
Laura hang up, without so much as an apology. She grabbed the Razr and left. She circled the house, twice, along the porch. Two be-suited agents matched their ties as she passed by. She speed-dialed. One digit.
“Dick,” she said, without any further ado. "It's Laura. I know, you’re very busy, but I need your help right now.” She paused briefly, as she passed a secret suit. “It’s about George. We’ve tried to keep it secret so far, at least I did, but I have to draw a line in the sand. You have a minute?” Laura didn’t wait for his answer. “He says that NineEleven happened on our watch, that Katrina happened on our watch, that Abu Ghraib happened on our watch, that the buck stopped on our watch, that there were no weapons of mass destruction, that 100,000 Iraqi civilians died, that we let Bin Laden escape in Tora Bora, that the Freedom Fries were a bad idea, that we inherited a budget surplus of 230 billion and left office with a budget deficit of 407 billion, that we spent 490 days on holiday, and that we debased the Dollar.
Dick, we,” — another secret suit — “he completely lost it … and all his, his Bushisms, I lived with them all my life, I cannot handle them anymore, they are hemisperic, embetter-mented, compassion-ated, dis-assembled, in-ebriating, in-un-der-estimating, hypo-retorical, un-in-alienable, vulcanizing, Dick, he is vulcanizing me, I have been a respected librarian of a perfect repute of English … it’s, it’s, … intolerable cruelty, yes, increasingly so, it’s torture, it’s becoming a legal fact … marriage counseling is not enough … and I have to keep up appearances, with all the secret suits around us now,” she bumped into the secret suit, who had been listening in, of course. “F@@k you,” she yelled, “f@@k you, fuck you.” The suit kept a straight face and matched his tie. “Sorry Dick, I have to call you back.”
CHAPTER 6
Richard Bruce Cheney flipped his cell-phone and stared out the window, where the ragged landscape of northern New Mexico was rolling past. Laura’s echo bounced from bluff to bluff. ‘We inherited a budget surplus of 230 billion’ … ‘we spent 490 days on holiday’ … ‘we have to keep up appearances.’ Cheney followed her voice with his eyes. Fisher next to him kept quiet.
-“You didn’t hear that, did you?” Cheney said after a while.
-“How about a drink,” Fisher conceded, and pushed a button on the rosewood bar-box couched between the front seats. Its cover slid back to reveal a pair of crystal glasses and some bottles, fancy looking ones, in particular the gold stopper in a twisty crystal decanter that looked like a prop from a community Shakespeare staging. Cheney recognized it as a Frapin Cuvée 1888, a brandy — he had entertained enough Sheiks during his tenure at Halliburton to know these things.
“You’ve got water,” Cheney asked, “still water? My cardiologist is asking.”
-“We’ve got water?” Fisher asked nobody in particular. Yes, there was water, Claude knew. Fisher had been on the board of the Chicago Athenaeum Museum when they had awarded their annual design award to the engraved Wave 66 water bottle, signé Antti Eklund. Fisher had gotten one thousand bottles from the company as a token of their gratitude — it wasn’t really a bribe since it was post hoc anyhow — thousand bottles that were now clogging the Fisher households all over the place, including his cars. Fisher had probably forgotten, so it would be unwise to risk reminding him. Instead, Ron turned around, angled for the Wave 66 water (it looked like an expensive vodka bottle) uncorked it, angled for a glass, filled the glass, and angled some more to get it across his seat to the former Vice President in the rear. “The water originates from the Konisaajo natural spring area in the arctic wilderness of Finnish Lapland,” Claude explained as he handed the glass to Cheney.
-“It’s ten thousand years old, right?”
-“How do you know,” Fisher asked.
-“Most water is ten thousand years old, older, in fact. Billions.” Cheney drank his water as if to celebrate a minor victory. The Cheney grin, briefly undone by Laura’s soliloquy, returned sip by sip. There was a lull in the conversation.
“It think a Rolls Royce is the only appropriate car for the opera,” Fisher broke the silence, “especially if it’s a bespoke Phantom Mark IV 1976 formerly owned by the royal family.”
-“Royal family?”
-“Yes, the Windsors.”
-“Now you say it. This one looks like the car Prince Charles was using with Camilla when they happened onto these communist students on their way to the opera, fairly recently.”
-“You got it.”
-“It looked like the students were attacking them. Nasty business.”
-“Truly a second amendment moment.”
-“More vice versa.” A dry Cheney laugh.
-“We had the American scoop. Eerie footing. ‘Chupp thur head uff, chupp thur heads uff’,” — Fisher was quite good at the estuary accent — “I talked to Charles on the phone afterwards.”
-“You really talk to everybody,” Cheney said.
-“It was a ruse. I told him he should get rid of the car. Karma, kismet, the way the cookie crumbles.”
-“He believed it.”
-“He’s into metaphysics. Next day, I send a spy to talk to the chief of the Buckingham mews, or whatever, about our Museum of Excellence, and how happy we would be to acquire this car for our collection, and whether they would sort of consign it, for a song, of course. Educational content.”
-“It worked, so to see.”
-“I’m doing it all the time. Great museum. All my Rothko’s. You wouldn’t believe it.”
-“You go to the opera a lot?”
-“Well, I don’t go, I drive.”
-“What’s on the program today? Wagner?”
-“Frankenstein. Highly classified, naturally, that’s why we’ve invited you. It’s based on our new people meters, and it could change the world, with the appropriate help of the appropriate administration.”
Cheney grinned a bit more.
“You know the Chinese curse, ‘may you live in interesting times’,” Fisher said. “Well, Lynx can’t live in Obama times, too much dialogue, too many rational arguments, too many facts, the futile pretense of bipartisanship … poison, poison for the ratings … our only ally in the administration is Bo.
-“Bo.”
-“Yes, the Portuguese Waterdog, Obama’s dog.”
-“You know, this waterdog is actually a poodle. As if any proof was needed…”
-“Bush’s dog was a Scottish Terrier.”
-“Barney.”
-“Bo scores very high on the surprise factor, and that makes all the difference for the ratings.”
-“I’m sorry to hear that.”
-“Well, actually, Michelle does better than Laura, too, so far, although her dress at the last Rose Garden presser was too office green, and the medium spring green of her belt did not work, and her mint green brooch was too phallic … green is such a difficult color … let alone the Rorschach test that she wore for the last state dinner with President Hu.”
The RollsRoyce had turned off Route 68 and was winding its way up a narrow gorge. An eerie glass and steel structure arose behind the hills, completely out of place in this adobe environment, several stories high, and crowned by a huge neon sign, ‘FISHER LABORATORIES.’
-“That’s a nice sign you got there.” Cheney said. “Cool. Can it blink?”
Fisher laughed.
-“You know, you should add another sign on top of it,” Cheney continued, “Top Secret.”
Fisher laughed some more. They were about to arrive.
-“There are new developments in the birther thing, Obama’s birth certificate, things could heat up,” Fisher said hastily to Cheney, as if to get this in before the show, “top secret.”
- “None wishes the current administration more success in defending the country than we do,” Cheney replied before he got interrupted by the Chauffeur who had opened his door and bowed as if former Vice President was about to declare war on Canada. They got out of the car.
A reception committee was assembled at the entrance, next to a large abstract statue, looking like a replica of one from Fisher’s gallery (bulges, edges, rough surfaces). This was a typical lab mix more or less, scientists with ponytails, engineers in t-shirts, bureaucrats sans matching ties. At the center of the posse a pair of cobalt irises, buttoned down, matched, this one.
The cobalt irises came forward. “We are ready,” they said by way of greeting to Fisher, who introduced Baltimore as the head of his laboratory to Cheney. Cheney wasn’t as pleased as Fisher had expected. Had they met before? Both didn’t say, but shook hands surreptitiously. Claude waved a shy hand to Vladimir and the rest of the crew.
Baltimore led the whole group into the building, past a lonely Steinway concert grand in the lobby, past a another replica of another abstract Fisher statue (or the same?), along over-polished corridors, up a flight of stairs, until they reached a second lobby. Double doors opened, and they entered the auditorium of Frankenstein’s Castle, version 3.0. The room itself a modern amphitheater, descending towards the stage. On the stage, the apparatus of sci-fi resurrection, blinking devices mounted onto mobile racks, monitors of all sizes, overhead surgical lights, a crash cart with its survival equipment, other carts, containers, a lectern, and in the middle of it all a dentist chair, reclined. Lying on the chair a young man, slender, casually dressed, already alive, so to see, his head covered by a large brain cap, with color-coded wires protruding in all directions and connecting to the blinking devices around it. The monitors are filled with vital signs and other intensive-scare symbolism; insiders would also recognize Fisher’s basic emotions, and even the Fisher formula, as it snakes across its own, separate screen. The young man had his eyes fixed on the largest screen, this one mounted to the back wall, displaying what looks like an evangelic revival event. He appeared relaxed, but concentrated. More cables, more people, a nurse next to him. Away from the buzz, wireless, behind a small desk, another slender young man, beautiful mulatto face, short, cropped, light hair, head gear in place, the green eyes fixed on his laptop screen. Claude recognized Alberrt.
Cheney, Fisher and the entourage were seated fastidiously in the front rows. Fisher bowed over to Cheney, pointed to the dentist chair, and said: “This boy, we abducted him for you, to show you how it works. He is pure Californian Pink, I can assure you, I abducted him myself. Brüno is as difficult as it gets.”
Meanwhile, Baltimore had climbed onto the stage. There he sought eye contact with Alberrt, who nodded conscientiously. Claude waved a shy wave to Alberrt, who ignored him.
Baltimore took up position behind the lectern, and said nothing. Somewhat in Fisher’s reaction informed the rest of the audience, the room fell silent. Nothing happened for a while, except the evangelical revival on Brüno’s screen. A sudden cut. Planes crashing into looming towers. Another cut. A city street, Victorian ladies left and right, heavy pedestrian traffic, mostly male, people holding hands, even balding people — aficionados were bound to recognize Castro Street, San Francisco, California. “That’s where I picked him up,” Fisher whispered to Cheney. The camera walked past a few shops, then focused on some adult outfit, Castro Street Men, a big poster of Barack Obama in swimwear behind the display window. ‘NEW ADULT RELEASE: BEEFCAKE ON THE WHITE HOUSE BEACH, PART XXX.’ “Very subtle,” Cheney whispered back.
The big screen returned to evangelical revival, interspersed with appearances of, what, yes, the famous Reverend Falwell, from his unforgettable NineEleven appearance on the Lynx news channel. Brüno kept his attention on the screen, undisturbed.
“Thank You Mr. Fisher, Thank You Mr. Vice President,” Baltimore finally said. “Our recent work here at the Fisher laboratories builds on the nature of emotions. We discovered that emotions have a distinctive brainwave signature that we can read via remote sensing, a primitive kind of telepathy, as it were.” The footage on Brüno’s screen continued to meander between revival, NineEleven, Castro, and Falwell.
“And with the help of young Alberrt here,” — the blue irises pointed to Alberrt, who sort of took the honors by shifting his body ever so slightly — “this technology is already implemented in the new People Meters. Then Alberrt discovered that we can invert the process and teach subjects to feel specific emotions through a Pavlovian setup of positive and negative stimuli by means of focused electromagnetic fields applied to the brain. Brüno, the subject under observation, was pure lily-pink Californian material, but is now learning the truth about NineEleven through a subtle interplay of positive and negative stimuli. We clear the subject’s brain, if you will, and make it responsive to any message of our choosing. A preference for beer is replaced by a preference for vodka, a preference for vodka is replaced by a preference for beer, a preference for Obama is replaced by a preference for…” — uncharacteristically, Baltimore was searching for words, until his eyes fell on the elephant in the room — “any Real American of our choosing, such as Richard Cheney.”
Right on cue, Brüno’s screen signed off. Baltimore looked at Alberrt, Alberrt looked at Baltimore. Baltimore snipped his fingers. The experiment was finished. The dentist chair moved into an upright position. The nurse removed Brüno’s brain cap, then helped him de-seat. Baltimore left the lectern, approached Brüno, and addressed him, kindly.
“Brüno, you okay?” Brüno, somewhat vertiginous, nodded reluctantly. “I’m sorry we have to put you through this, but it serves a purpose.” Baltimore turned around and addressed Cheney below him in the first row: “Mr. Vice President, you might be curious to learn what Brüno thinks about NineEleven now.”
Cheney did not react. The cobalt irises paled. ‘Mr. Vice President,’ they said. Fisher squeezed Cheney's arm, as if they were watching a Hitchcock movie together.
What makes a dictator step down, Cheney must have thought. “Young man,” he finally said, “what do you think about NineEleven?”
-“Throwing God out of the public square,” Brüno answered, “out of the schools, the abortionist got to bear some burden for this, because God will not be mocked when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad, I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminist and the gays and the lesbians who were actively trying…” Fisher clapped his hands, then slapped Cheney’s legs. “Kassa, Kassa.”
-“This machine can wash brains, right?” Cheney asked.
-“Yes, It washes and re-tunes them.”
-“Any’s brain, right? Even brains where there is not much to wash, right?”
-“Any brain.”
-“I have an idea that would suit us both,” Cheney replied.
CHAPTER 7
“We’ve put the black card to good use,” Jim said, tapping the steering wheel of the brand new International Class 7 Crew Cab Pickup with his free hand.
Zack, next to him, fondled the dashboard. “At some point,” Zack said, “in the best-conceived vehicles, style and utility come together. In this vehicle, both are unique. Bigness is validated by capacity and flexibility. Keyless entry, power windows, excellent sound, and the added gadget value of air-brake buttons on the dash bring ever more machismo to an interior that's top-notch, and larger.”
Liz knew she should not have listened. “Larger what,” she said, without asking.
-“Larger than life.”
Liz reflected on her brief, happy life, her love of the law, of literature, language, and of men, and how her historical study of Supreme Court opinions had accelerated her personal growth recently, and guided her through every stage of advanced feminism, amongst other things, until she had reached — today, this very minute — a new plateau of gender transcendence. “Boys will be boys,” she said.
They had traveled along the Arthur Brown Freeway, across the Central Valley, then started to climb up 108 toward the Sierra Nevada, crossed the misnamed Tuolumne City, and reached Forest Route 1N04. They had reached the Forest Route some time ago, actually. “We’re still on 1N04, I hope,” Jim said.
-“Why don’t we have the coordinates,” Zack said, “it would be easy with the GPS.”
-“Auntie Barbara died in 1976,” Liz replied. “There were no coordinates in 1976.”
-“They must have been invented later.”
-“All we have is this hand-drawn map, drawn by Barbara herself.”
-“We should consign it. Sotheby’s. Autographs. Barbara Nachtrieb was famous,” Jim said.
-“We need it to find the place first.”
-“She wasn’t your aunt exactly, right,” Leona asked.
-“Sort of, my great-grand aunt.”
-“And she’s Pamela’s aunt.”
-“Grand aunt.”
-“And she built this place when.”
-“During the Twenties, I think, after she married for the second time. A manly Scotsman with little formal education but quick typing. He typed her books.”
-“That’s why she married him?”
-“No, it was physical. She fell in love.”
-“She was pretty?” Leona said.
-“Why do you want to know?” Liz answered.
-“You are quite pretty,” Jim interrupted.
-“Quite pretty, did you hear that,” — Leona.
-“I’d rather inherit her intellect. She was the first female law professor in the nation, sort of.”
-“The DNA is safely entrenched, look at Pamela,” — Leona.
-“Safer than the beauty part,” — Zack.
-“Pamela was pretty, too. The macaroons are doing her in. She munches when she writes,” Liz said.
-“And when she doesn’t?” — Zack.
-“She spends her time munching less.”
-“She also munches men,” — Jim.
-“She has quite a reputation,” — Leona.
-“She offered to step into my shoes,” Liz said to Jim. Perhaps she shouldn’t have said that — too late.
-“How do you mean?”
-“In case you need more input.”
-“Input?”
-“When I’m too busy. When my love of the law overrules other things.”
-“Input?”
-“She said input. Then she corrected herself. More the reverse of input. Or inverse. She said.”
-“Elaborate.”
-“No, she means it, I’m certain.”
-“Well, thank you.”
-“She says you are very handsome. Or good-looking.”
-“Well, thank you.”
-“Zack is handsome, and you are good-looking, she said, or vice versa, I forgot which is which.”
-“What’s the difference?”
-“Brad Pitt is handsome, and George Clooney is good-looking,” Leona interrupted.
Zack turned the inside read mirror in his direction to get a better look. “So,” he said to Jim, “you look like George Clooney.”
Jim grabbed the mirror to get a better look of himself. “No, I look like you.”
-“Okay, I look like George Clooney.”
-“But less so.”
-“The consumer is always right,” Jim said, “let the girls decide.”
-“A pageant,” Liz observed.
-“Why not short-circuit this. Bring out your dicks,” — Leona.
-“I’m driving,” Jim said.
-“What’s wrong with that? I got laid while driving, once, by my high school teacher, of all people, I’m not making this up,” — Zack.
-“Then Zack wins by default,” Liz said, she had to stop this.
- “Her offer involved only Jim?” — Zack.
-“I’m sure there would be some wiggle room,” — Jim.
-"Under the sheets," — Leona.
-“Well, anyhow, I felt the obligation to convey her offer,” Liz said.
-“Does she expect an answer?”
There was a brief lull in the conversation. Liz looked at her map. “It’s the next road to the right. Forest Route 3NO1. Let’s hope it’s marked.” It was.
The trees were getting larger. “So, she built this place during the Twenties?” Leona asked Liz.
-“He built it for her. Yes.”
-“The manly Scotsman.” — Jim.
-“And they came here a lot?”
-“She loved it.”
-“Sort of love shack?” — Zack.
-“More like a log cabin, as far as I remember it. I’ve been here only once, as a child. That’s why I don’t remember the road.”
-“What’s the difference between love shacks and log cabins?” — Jim, the inquisitive mind.
Zack, who had a complicated past as a rock star, remembered the song. “If you see a faded sign by the side of the road that says 15 miles to the … Love Shack! Love Shack, yeah.” In fact, everybody knew the song, even Liz. “Bang, bang, bang, on the door baby! Knock a little louder baby! Bang, bang, bang, on the door baby.” It was very inspiring, the more so since the bumpy road and the rugged pickup suspension joined the fun. A horn, blowing from behind. “Bang, bang, bang.” The horn of the Confederate flag. Jim decelerated. The flag transmogrified into a pickup truck, replete with a bunch of inflated, balding, ponytailed rednecks on the front seat, three of them, undressed for all practical purposes; clothes would have been undersized anyhow. The Berkeley crowd fell silent, but the rednecks had taken over already, chanting “Bang, bang, bang” to the rhyme of explicit gestures. All three made a show of masturbating now, including the driver, who kept the truck next to their International with the other hand. The road narrowed. Jim almost hit a tree. Another tree. Jim pulled over. For a moment it looked as if the rednecks would pull over as well. Jim pushed the panic button. The lock clicked and the windows closed. The red-necks hesitated, then accelerated, transmogrified into the Confederate flag, and disappeared into the future.
They had reached Forest Route 2NO84, which was narrower, and steeper. “It’s on this road, off this road, I mean,” Liz said, “six more hairpin bends, auntie writes in her unadulterated longhand. Four miles. Then 200 feet. To the right.”
-“This is where she wrote her books.”
-“I doubt it. No internet, nothing. You needed a library to write a law book. You still need one.”
-“She wrote a lot of books?”
-“Not as many as Pamela. Two volumes about family law, and a book about social insurance. Appeared in 1932. Very timely.”
-“Interesting,” Jim said. He should never have studied law, Liz knew.
-“She was very active politically. It was during the great depression. Roosevelt called her to Washington to help with the New Deal. When she got the telegram, she thought it was a joke. California, that was the Fiji Islands in those days, she said.”
-“She went to Washington.”
-“She arrived in Washington and there was a note on her desk that she should pull out her bottom drawer and put her feet in it at five o’clock in the evening. Five pm was cockroach hour. The place was infested with cockroaches, not only in a literal sense.”
-“I thought cockroaches would live solely in New York city,” Leona said.
-“And in love shacks,” — Zack.
Jim decelerated.
-“You didn’t tell us.” — Leona.
-“Cockroaches are about food. There is no food left at the Cabin.”
-“Let’s hope,” — Zack.
-“You still want to hear the story?”
-“More teachable moments?” — Zack.
-“So, she arrives,” Liz continued, “and she is asked to write a report on social insurance. Now, she had already written a book about it, the book that brought her to Washington, so her position was known. Anyhow, she writes a report and says: the country must get compulsory unemployment and old age insurance, both at the federal level.”
- “Compulsory. And what did Kennedy say?” — Zack.
- “Kennedy hadn’t been appointed yet.”
- “Just asking.”
-“Anyhow, the report is done, and is submitted to Edwin Witte, who is the executive director of the Committee of Economic Security, that’s where she is serving. Roosevelt had installed this committee, because summer was approaching, and they didn’t have air conditioning in those days, and legislation had stalled in Congress, and the committee was supposed to sort it out. The pending legislation was not consistent with Barbara’s ideas; they didn’t want anything compulsory, and they wanted it run by the states, not at the federal level. So, Mr. Witte calls her, and opens the conversation: ‘Mrs. Nachtrieb, from a very high place certain results are wanted.’ Barbara replies: ‘I’m sorry, you’ll have to be clearer than that.’ Witte repeats: ‘From a very high place certain results are wanted.’ Barbara asks: ‘How high, how high?’ Witte thinks a bit, then says: ‘A very high place.’ Barbara asks: ‘You mean somebody doesn’t like what I said in my report, is that what you mean?’ ‘Well,’ he answers, ‘as I said, from a very high place certain results are wanted … you shouldn’t have put those things in your report.’”
- “This guy wouldn’t have dared this with a man,”
Leona said.
- “She never found out from where the ‘high place’ was. Anyhow, Witte redacts her report, turns it on its head, and presents it to the committee, with her name still on it. He claims with a straight face that she had recommended just the opposite of what she actually did recommend. But Barbara did not sit idly by. ‘I would like to know,’ she interrupted Witte, ‘who dares to do that and leave my name on it? How dare you?’ The committee was stirred and shaken. But Witte didn’t give up. ‘You could have a very pleasant life,’ he told her afterwards, ‘It’s very nice to be a persona grata at the White House.’ ”
- “There goes the New Deal.” — Zack.
-“Anyhow, now we get to the Kennedy part. Compulsory insurance is unconstitutional, the bigwigs cry. You don’t know, they tell her, because you are not a law professor — law professors were men in those days — but we know a law professor, and he’s from Harvard, and his name is Thomas Reed Powell, and he says compulsory insurance is unconstitutional. It just so happened, Barbara knew Powell well. So Barbara goes up to Boston and spends the weekend with the Powells, explains the situation, and Powell writes a letter for her. She’s back in Washington, the committee meets, and while the bigwigs explain to everybody that the Harvard professor says compulsory insurance is unconstitutional, auntie opens her purse, produces the letter, holds it up in the air, and says: ‘I have a letter from Thomas Powell here.’ A Perry Mason moment. She read the letter out aloud. The bigwigs pale.
-“You still have it? The letter? Perhaps Obama could use it,” — Zack.
-“I’m not yet done. The forces of darkness regroup. A luncheon is organized, more bigwigs. Roosevelt himself will address the crowd. Roosevelt arrives, feels in his pocket for the manuscript of his speech, finds it, and starts to read. He’s also against compulsory federal insurance — the speech had been penned by Barbara’s tormentor, the evil Witte. ‘It’s the kiss of death,’ Barbara yells, while the Egyptian secret police drags her to the torture chamber below the pyramids.”
Liz waited for a second.
-“And?” Jim said.
-“No, I’m making this up.”
-“Everything?” — Zack.
- “Jolted by the realization that everything was at stake, Barbara activated her network. A close friend of hers, Max Stern, was an influential east-coast editor, and he mobilized more papers. The next morning, papers from coast to coast, including the New York Times, carried editorials sharply critical of Roosevelt’s speech, particularly of his position on old-age insurance. In the end, Barbara carried a victory of sorts, and a substantial number of her recommendations became law.”
-“And then she left Washington and returned to the love shack.”
-“It was winter when she came back.”
-“Do cockroaches hibernate?” — Leona.
-“Cockroaches are immortal,” Liz said.
Liz had counted the hairpin bends. “This is the sixth bend. Two hundred feet from here, on the right.” Approximately two hundred feet later an opening into the redwoods. Yes, there was the sign, Liz remembered it now, Armstrong, the Scotsman’s name. A mud path, barely discernible under layers of forest debris, barely wide enough for a truck, two dead tree trunks across the path blocking the entrance, more dead trunks blocking the horizon. This looked fairly hopeless. “What do we do?” Liz asked.
“Boys will be boys,” Jim answered. He switched a switch below the dash board, waited for an anonymous noise to settle at the front end of the vehicle, pushed the pedal, and had a frontal go at the first trunk. The trunk caved in. Likewise the second trunk. “You may not have noticed the multi-purpose plow we’ve mounted in anticipation of Californian forest entropy,” Zack said, “but it’s part of the macho thing, and it’s there, waiting to happen.”
-“Like erections,” Leona observed.
It took some doing, but a few trees further they had reached a clearing that opened up to a forest valley below. In the middle stood the log cabin, as promised. Or what was left of it. One floor, a porch, a pitched roof, an entrance door, windows, some window-panes still intact. Historic. History. Perhaps too much of it.
-“You sure your granny-aunt owned this?” Zack asked.
-“All decrepit log-cabins look the same, I’d say,” Liz replied. “But there was the sign, Armstrong. Yes, it slowly comes back to me now. This is it.”
-“No ways this could be traced to us?”
-“My family sto
-pped paying property taxes eons ago. Never heard from the town hall again. This is the loneliest place in California. Listen to the silence.”
They got out of the truck and listened to the silence. It was perfect, the silence. Except, there was a very faint, faint noise, less faint now, approaching, coming closer, growing on them, closing in on them, ratcheting, too close now. War of the worlds, Avatar. A sky machine plowing its way through the forest canopy at hundred decibels an hour, with a large object dangling from it on a cable. The sky machine crossed over, ignored them, disappeared behind the tree tops, decibels dropping, fainter, fainting until the noise blended into the background silence. They listened to the silence, very carefully now. “It’s gone,” Zack said.
***
Hal cast a glance at the coordinates on the screen and nodded to Burton. “This looks to me like a dense forest of redwood trees,” Burton said via the intercom.
-¬“Makes sense. We’re close to Yosemite Park, where the redwood tree was invented,” Hal replied.
-“Where are we going to touch down?”
-“At 38 degrees, 0 minutes, 23.65 seconds north, 119 degrees, 59 minutes, 19.87 seconds west.”
-“In the canopy of the forest?”
-“The bird is licensed for canopies, trust me.”
The bird, still on automatic pilot, slowed down. A clearing appeared below. “The clearing,” Hal said, that’s the odd 0.05 seconds here, the odd 0.07 seconds there on the autopilot, all finely calibrated by Fisher Earth.”
-“Why here?”
-“This is the cleanest place within the perimeter. No one is paying property taxes within a ten mile radius. And it’s protected. No huntin’, no fishin’.”
-“Must be great for huntin’ and fishin’.”
-“Be my guest,” Hal said, as he directed the automatic winch and lowered the prefab structure to the ground.
CHAPTER 8
They needed to know where Yoo parked his car; else the plan would not work. He had stopped using the lot in front of Boalt School’s entrance (since the name had been dropped officially, it was Boalt School and nothing else, oalt school defiance against the Marketing Forces), and the rumor mill — a defective tool in Yoo’s case with his few friends — the rumor mill had it that he was upset by the bumper stickers on his Lexus and scared of scratches.
Zack and Leona were at Barbara’s cabin, Liz was reading Supreme Court opinions, Jim was helping her, somebody had to find out. It was fairly urgent. She grabbed the secret phone — Zack could call any minute now — put it in her bag, and left her office. She would take up position in the lobby, where she would play the Populist Dean, for cover. The populist dean was expected of her anyhow, occasionally, and her performance was not without merit, although reviews were sometimes mixed, especially on Friday afternoons when people wanted to go home early, an inclination she applauded on the one hand, and hated on the other. Anyhow, there she stood, expansive as always (not always, only since twenty years or so), dispensing kisses, hi’s, compliments (“you look great”), compliments (“you look great”), feedback (“we were missing you at the budget meeting, where have you been”), more compliments (“where did you get that tan?”), as her academic subjects were drifting toward TGI weekend.
Meanwhile, in a parallel universe, Pamela was waiting for Yoo to go home to his wife and two children, his wife the estranged daughter of the Pulitzer-prize winning face of the first gulf war, Peter Arnett, his children the estranged grand-children of the Pulitzer-prize winning face of the first gulf war, at least, that’s how she assumed Yoo’s family worked. But perhaps this wasn’t so at all; Arnett loomed large in her own life since it had been him, the CNN correspondent in Baghdad, who had watched over her final fall from svelteness during one month of uninterrupted couch attendance in the run-up to the war. Tragically, she had been on sabbatical leave at that time; planning to write another law book, she had turned down visiting appointments elsewhere and was stuck in front of the TV with an excessive supply of macaroons and productive procrastination. She had gained twenty more pounds when the war was over, twenty pounds that had tipped the balance of her life.
She had already sent six faculty, twelve students, and three staff into the weekend when vice dean Bieber descended the stairs. A small, middle-aged man of nondescript appearance, Justin Bieber jr. was the son of Justin Bieber sr. on the one hand, and the father of Justin Bieber III on the other, a man bound by transitivity and hence a fitting inspiration for Pamela’s law (the law, you may remember, that she had accidentally discovered at Oakland International). She opened her arms wide — he was scared of big women and would keep a certain distance. “How’s going,” she cheered, “haven’t seen you in fifteen minutes.”
-“Great, Pamela, great,” Bieber replied, “I’ve just taken a few minutes off my vice-deanly obligations to check on my blog.”
-“Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t have a chance to catch up with your blog recently, but I promise.”
Bieber laughed lightly. “That’s not it, Pamela,” he said, “although you should. Lot’s of good stuff. It’s really coming along great. Especially during the last couple of days. The blog is taking off, all of a sudden. You won’t believe it. You know how many hits I had yesterday? More than ONE thousand. We’re up by three orders of magnitude. In the space of a week. Hitwise. It’s incredible.”
-“You’re so talented as a blogger.”
-“No no, that’s not it,” Bieber replied modestly. “Although, lot’s of the hits are actually for me, Justin Bieber, or variants thereof, quite amazing, really, how many ways there are to misspell my name.”
-“Interesting,” Pamela said.
Bieber was supposed to understand this putdown and hit the road. She blinked, but no no avail, he was still there.
-“Lot’s of hits. All of a sudden. And it’s highly international. Lot’s of hits from Canada. Strange stuff, too. Justin Bieber One Time. One Time Justin Bieber. As if I were unique. Mysterious, really, but that’s what blogging is all about. Discover yourself in the mirror of others. I always say.”
-“Yes, I know.”
-“And adult stuff, too. Like, like, Justin Bieber Undressed, Justin Bieber Naked. And that’s not all. I won’t go further.”
-“I understand.”
-“Justin Bieber’s Mother in Playboy. Do you understand that?”
Pamela took a good look at Bieber. “No, I don’t Justin, I really don’t.”
-“God moves in mysterious ways. I think it’s ultimately for the pension campaign. You know, I’m using the blog as a platform. It’s important for both of us. More for you, actually.”
Pamela remained silent; the conversation was supposed to die. “You know that our pension plans are capped at 240 kay, annually,” Bieber continued. “You earn more, it won’t translate into higher pension payments. The university’s regents promised to lift the cap but have now changed their minds, using the Californian budget crisis as a pretext.”
Pamela, not listening, still surveyed the stairs. Yes, there he was. Yoo. He had seen her of course, and shifted his trajectory slightly, staying out of her greeting perimeter, tiptoeing stridently towards the exit. Then he was gone. She had a few seconds. “I suddenly feel as if I need some fresh air,” she said to Bieber and turned herself towards the door. Bieber’s body language failed him, but he followed.
Like any undercover agent, she had to calibrate her distance. Too little, and she would risk discovery, ridicule, and perhaps prison, as Yoo might go to court and accuse her of stalking — he was exactly the kind of person to do that. Too much distance, well, obvious, she would lose him. As she exited the building, Yoo had already progressed across the parking lot and down the drive in the direction of Haas, the business school. She sped. Bieber sped. “The pension plan is an important part of offering the competitive compensation packages that help us hire and retain the faculty and executives required by the excellence component of Berkeley’s mission.” Bieber snapped.
-“The excellence component of Berkeley’s mission,” Pamela echoed; there are almost always linguistic clues.
Yoo had reached the end of the drive and turned left. Pamela widened her steps. Bieber widened his steps. Pamela turned left. Bieber turned left. Yoo was about to disappear behind the west corner of Haas School.
-“You know, fresh air, it’s so important,” Pamela said.
-“Pamela,” Bieber coughed, trying to hold on to her ear, “Pamela, together we have spent almost seven years battling successfully to hire and retain the best possible faculty and the strongest possible administrative team. Pensions are an importunate issue.”
-“Justin, I don’t think we need more pension money. The university is in a full-blown budget crisis. The whole world is. They would have to fire people for our pension.” They had reached Hall Road; Yoo was forging ahead westbound.
-“Pamela,” Bieber said, breathing faster. “Hiring people. It is the most difficult, satisfying, painful and important part of our job. My experience has made me absolutely certain that paying competitive total compensation is necessary if we want to sustain excellence. If Boalt and Berkeley had not been interested in that excellence, I—like most faculty and students—would not have come.”
Yoo turned right on Sather Road. “Dunno,” Pamela said, “isn’t excellence compensation in itself? Being around brilliant, bright, people, luminous, radiant” — her inner thesaurus got going — “dazzling, sparkling, gleaming, shining, people like you, it should compensate for a lot of compensation.” They turned right on Sather Road. She hesitated for a split second, then added: “I’d gladly give ten percent of my salary to work with you, Justin.” Over the top. Over the top. Let him eat cake!
-“And so would I, and so would I” — Bieber eating the cake.
-“Working with yourself?” Pamela couldn’t help it.
-“To work with you.”
-“But we are already working together.” What’s the name of this fallacy, she thought. Blame it on me, Justin, blame it on me! Walking and chewing arguments at the same time.
Yoo turned left, unexpectedly, apparently heading for the east entrance of Dwinelle Hall. “Some deans report the signal that UC may not keep its promises is already having a chilling impact on recruitment and retention of faculty and top administrators,” Bieber said.
-“Report the signal,” Pamela echoed.
In the meantime, Yoo had disappeared inside Dwinelle Hall. -“I’m so thirsty, aren’t you? Let’s go get a Diet Coke from the dispenser in Dwinelle.” She almost ran. Bieber almost ran.
-“Simply put, I believe in the institutional principle at stake and, therefore…” Bieber choked. Pamela had entered the building. No Yoo in sight. A kingdom for a thought. Yes. If he was heading for a parking lot, he could use Dwinelle as a shortcut. The lot was right behind it, on the other side.
-“The’ve run out of Diet Coke, let’s try the dispenser at Life Science,” she called out to Bieber, and ran toward the west exit. Bieber ran toward the west exit. She almost crashed through the doors’ glass pane. Bieber almost crashed through Pamela. Outside, Yoo stood still, apparently in conversation with his cell phone.
Had Yoo seen her? She turned her face away from the door. It was a good thing that Bieber was always puzzled by her moves. “I’ve changed my mind, Justin,” she said, “I’ve been unfair to you. Tell me more about your blog.” She blocked the exit with her impressive body. “How many hits did you have in the last fifteen minutes. Show me.”
-“Right now?” Bieber asked meekly, but he brought out his Iphone. Pamela turned her head halfway toward the door. Yoo had already finished his phone conversation. Behind her shoulder, a scream.
-“Pamela,” Bieber yelled, “I got four hundred fifteen hits in the last fifteen minutes.” Pamela opened the door, threw “why don’t you google yourself” at Bieber, and left. The vice dean, lost in cyber space, stayed behind.
Had Yoo seen her? Not seen her? Together with Bieber? Canoodling in the lobby of Dwinelle? Small man, fat woman? Yoo wouldn’t dare to spread the rumor. In any event, he wasn’t spreading it right now. Instead, he headed straight to the parking lot, where he disappeared inside a silvery sedan of non-descript design, well-polished, no scratches, and left. Pamela had no sense of cars and could not tell whether this was a Lexus or not, but it had an air of A-minus luxury about it that, as Liz had informed her, was the hallmark of the brand. The secret phone in Pamela’s purse rang.
***
It was a big nail, supposed to do big things in this tiny cabin. Zack hold it with one hand and a hammer with the other. “Watch carefully,” he said to Leona.
-“This is easily the biggest nail of you law career,” Leona observed. Zack tipped the nail’s head with his hammer, then hit it tick by tick into the wood until he had it anchored. “You’re so talented,” she added with little irony in her voice. Zack felt the force. He retracted the hammer for bolder action, pounced, pounced harder, pounced again, jumped like a tarantula, screamed, screamed harder, and went silent. Tears rolled over his face. “Say something,” Leona asked.
-“Fuck,” he finally said.
Leona got the first aid kit, opened it, and found a flask with brandy.
-“Typical Pamela, she must have anticipated this,” she said. She uncorked the flask and offered it to Zack.
-“Fuck,” Zack said again, more articulate this time, and shook his dead thumb.
-“No brandy?” Leona asked, then took a swig herself.
- “Why are we doing this,” Zack said.
-“Because we want justice.”
-“Why don’t we just try him in court.”
-“That’s the idea. But it’s circuitous.”
-“This nail is a circuit too far.”
-“Come on, we’re almost done.”
Zack put the hammer down, grabbed the flask, and took a serious gulp.
-“When we did this Abu Ghraib thing on him, it was the first time I’ve ever seen him in class. I found him sort of punchy. Boring, but punchy. Not an idiot.”
-“Of course not. You’re clerking for the Supreme Court, you’re not idiot, even when you’re clerking for Clarence Thomas. They have IQ meters installed at the personnel entrance.”
-“But he has this over achiever about him, as if he had to work hard for his SAT score.”
-“Well, he was born in Korea, came to the States at an early age. The Koreans are crazy about education, ask Chang. Kids study 16 hours per day. They have schools, after-schools, night schools. You would have studied that much, you’d gotten into Stanford.”
-“Do I look as if I would work for my SAT score?”
-“Or learned how to hammer big nails.”
There was a silence. “Okay, I retract,” Leona said. She liked Zack.
-“Yoo got into Harvard and wrote his own ticket,” Zack probed.
-“Well, not quite. He got his Scotus clerkship through Silverman, Washington circuit, former deputy attorney general for President Ford. Thomas and Silverman are close.”
-“Thomas turned him around?”
-“I think he’s been conservative from the start. Just look at him. The way he moves, like there’s always some elder he tries to please. The Confucius thing.”
-“But he tries to please as a scholar.”
-“He tries to please the right people; id est the wrong people. He’s always belonged to the conservative tribe. He criticized Clinton for his expansive use of power but flipped completely when Bush called him to Washington.”
-“He said he’d never met Bush in person.”
-“Not a good excuse.”
-“Well, his main argument is that everything is different during times of war.”
-“Not only. He invented a new definition of torture, messed with the Geneva Convention, exonerated waterboarding, exonerated wiretapping. He always found excuses. He always took sides. Under Bush, he has reliably and consistently exonerated the abuse of power.”
-“Any esteemed jurist left in him?”
-“Whatever he tells you, He’s partisan first. Logic comes second.”
-“Any esteemed jurist left in him?”
-“Well, the Justice Department accused him of intentional professional misconduct after he left.”
-“So he should get fired.”
-“That’s the idea. Yes. That’s why we are here.”
-“Why can’t Pamela just fire him?”
-“She would need the consent of Berkeley’s president. And she isn’t sure she would prevail in court. He would sue. Academic tenure. Academic freedom. That’s why we need Yoo’s own input.”
Zack took another swig. “My thumb had it for today,” he said. “Let’s do the rest tomorrow and change subjects.” He went outside, and came back with his bag and a laptop. He opened the bag, and produced a weird looking smart phone and a USB cable. He connected the computer with the phone, then looked at his watch. “Pamela should be communicado, right?” He handed the smart phone to Leona, and said: “I need your help with this.”
-“This is the scrambling thing?” Leona asked.
-“Yes.”
-“Why do you think it’s necessary?”
-“Holland, France, a-vee, whatever? ‘Bugs in your office.’ The message on this lewd website? French?”
-“How about bugs in love shacks?”
-“That’s why you’re not supposed to bring your own cell phone. Your standard cell-phone is always tracked, even when it’s switched off. The provider always knows where you are. Nobody should know where we are. I swiped this place, remember, just to be on the safe side.”
-“And this phone?”
-“This one has been heavily taken care of. Plus, it behaves like a local. It believes it belongs to the nearest organic hunter. Who lives ten miles away. A man with the name John Smith. I’m not making this up.”
-“Why do we scramble, then?”
-“Because the NSA samples cell phone calls. All the time. They can break the standard encryption. Or they say they can. It’s a risk we can avoid.”
-“They can’t break ours?”
-“Some geek brought the algorithm from China. Sells it under the counter.”
-“But not to the NSA.”
-“I had it modified by my SAT-scoring brother. He got into Stanford. Remember? Stanford.”
-“I didn’t mean to hurt your ego.” Leona gave him a kiss. Zack subsided. “Okay,” Leona said next, “what am I supposed to do?”
-“You call Pamela from this phone. Not her normal number, of course. She has the twin phone. It’s already set up. Speed dial. One. Don’t say anything. Just spell the alphabet. “Adams, Boston, Chicago, and so on.”
Leona dialed One. Zack focused on his notebook screen. Somebody took the call, but did not answer the phone. Pamela apparently knew what she was doing. “Antonio,” Liz started, and continued, “Barcelona, Carmen, Chocolate, Dolores, Enrique.”
-“What are you doing,” Zack whispered.
-“It’s a code in itself,” Leona whispered back, “Pamela will understand.”
Zack shook his head. “Continue,” he said.
-“Francia, Gerona, Historia, Ines, Jose,” Leona walked down the Spanish spelling alphabet. The green oscillations on Zack’s note-book danced to the tune of her words across a dark grid. “Querido, Ramón, Sábado…” The machine beeped agreeably. Zack signaled with his hands. “…Xiquena, Yegua, Zaragoza.” Leona flipped the phone.
-“It works, he said. We’re done. Why are you doing this? ‘Antonio, Barcelona?’ This is not a Woody Allen movie.”
-“We are learning Spanish, you know. For our future date with Fernando. “
 |
| Fernando? |
-“Who’s Fernando.”
—“He’s the new Lynx correspondent in Madrid.”
-“You watch Lynx?”
-“Fernando is all the rage.”
-“Lynx?”
-“Doesn’t matter. He’s an overnight sensation. He’s all over the place. Facebook, Twitter. You can buy his used undies on Ebay, as a matter of speaking. Don’t know how he handles it.”
-“Are you serious?”
-“Pamela is a great fan, too. We are in this together. Of course, Pamela is a fan. Liz less so. I think she’s lesbian.”
-“I’m feeling old,” Zack said, then reverted, “the used undies, how do they get onto Ebay?”
-“It’s not about the undies. It’s just, it’s just, Ooh, I’d wish you were as handsome as Fernando.”
***
Agent Ma Man Kuang had just finished a kroas-san, a fluffy little roll of quadrilateral shape, rhombus-like. Flower was probably its main component, but it tasted sweetish and sticked to the gum. Agent Yan Kuan had also finished a kroas-san. ‘Worldwise in a larger world,’ — the latest campaign of the party — had everybody eating western food, and agents above a certain pay grade were supposed to get the message. Kroas-sans were part of the game. “What do you think?” he asked Ma Man.
-“It’s important that we know how a subject under observation feels when he eats kroas-sans, it could have an effect on his brain, and, from there, on his thinking. Materialism shakes hands with idealism. Anticipation is key.”
-“I brought some rice soup,” Ya Kuan replied. Ma Man looked around. Their office was a mess. New responsibilities, new technology, new gizmo’s, everything was piling up. The analogue rice-soup heater, where was it?
A beep from the direction of the central monitor on the wall interrupted his search. A yellow icon blinking, then a text message: “QuFu Lu encryption active ultra mures: Response requested.”
-“QuFu Lu code?” Ya Kuan asked.
-“It’s an outdated secret service encryption; we never used it, as far as I know. But we invented it. It’s not supposed to show up anywhere else. Let’s see.” Ma Man hit a few keys on his notebook. A new message appeared on the central screen: “Location: 38-02 north, 120-06 west.”
-“That’s in California, isn’t it?” Ya Kuan said. A few keystrokes by Ma Man, and a satellite map — Google Earth, but better — appeared on the screen with a blinking dot somewhere at the foot of the Sierra Nevada, 160 klicks east of San Francisco.
-“Let’s see whether we can get a visual,” Ma Man said. More keystrokes. Another image of Central California, slowly crawling across the screen. Zooming … right into the heart of a redwood forest. A dwelling appears at the end of the zoom, a log cabin apparently, tugged in between the trees. A pickup truck parked nearby, no people.
-“Well, now we know more,” Ya Kuan said, “why can’t they go outside to make a phone call?”
-“Let’s see where it’s going to.” More strokes on Man’s keyboard; a location indication flashed by, and an agglomeration of buildings came into focus, a woman at the center of things, round, expansive, holding a cell phone to her ear.
-“It’s her again. She didn’t get nominated, but the NSA is still bugging her office.”
-“What are they saying?”
-“Let’s get an oral,” Ma Man said — “Xiquena, Yegua, Zaragoza,” a female voice said, and stopped.
Timbers flipped the cell phone and returned it to her bag.
-“Let hear the recording,” Ma Man said.
-“Antonio,” the female voice went, “Barcelona, Carmen, Chocolate, Dolores, Enrique.” Silence, some whispers, unintelligible. “Francia, Gerona, Historia.” While they were listening to the Spanish alphabet with an American accent, Dr. Timbers appeared to open her bag again. A carton box in pale pistachio color appeared. She unfolded it and produced a roundish little thing, almost the shape of a hamburger bun, but smaller, its color matching the box. This wasn’t a dull bun, however, it gleamed with the sheen of sugar icing, and where you would expect the meat, it featured whitish, yummie-looking cream. Dr. Timbers took a bite, and munched pensively.
-“She’s at it again,” Ya Kuan said. “Remember, she was eating that stuff all the time when we had her under intensive surveillance.”
-“We need to find out the name of this cookie,” Ma Man replied.
Timbers flipped the cell phone and returned it to her bag.
-“Let hear the recording,” Ma Man said.
-“Antonio,” the female voice went, “Barcelona, Carmen, Chocolate, Dolores, Enrique.” Silence, some whispers, unintelligible. “Francia, Gerona, Historia.” While they were listening to the Spanish alphabet with an American accent, Dr. Timbers appeared to open her bag again. A carton box in pale pistachio color appeared. She unfolded it and produced a roundish little thing, almost the shape of a hamburger bun, but smaller, its color matching the box. This wasn’t a dull bun, however, it gleamed with the sheen of sugar icing, and where you would expect the meat, it featured whitish, yummie-looking cream. Dr. Timbers took a bite, and munched pensively.
-“She’s at it again,” Ya Kuan said. “Remember, she was eating that stuff all the time when we had her under intensive surveillance.”
-“We need to find out the name of this cookie,” Ma Man replied.
***
The construction crew was about to finish up; the compound was more or less ready. Hal was satisfied; another pointless job well done. Two bunk rooms, a common room with a kitchen, a mock-up hospital room, another bed room, level 3 technology. Accessible only by chopper. A hospital hideaway for unwanted hypochondriacs? A Big Brother revival setting for celebrity crawlies? An off-broadway retreat for the Führer, or for Vladimir? Unlikely.
Hal installed his notebook on the kitchen table, brought out the cell-phone, and connected it to the laptop. Then he called Burton and handed him the cell phone: “You need a direct line to the boss, here it is. But don’t tell him. It’s classified, as usual. Dial one, and when he answers, don’t say hello. Instead, walk down the alphabet. Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and so on. Make it sound conspiratorial. We need a raise.” Burton took the phone, and dialed one.
***
Ma Man had finally found the heater and was about to plug it in. “The yellow icon is blinking again,” Yan Kuan interrupted.
-“Let it blink. I’m dealing with rice soup,” Ma replied, sitting on the ground, trying to reach the outlet hidden behind a defunct filing cabinet.
-“It’s the same location. 38 degrees, and so forth.”
-“See, don’t get over-excited,” Ma said; he had found the plug.
-“No, it’s not, not quite, I think. What was the other one?”
-“Thirty eight degrees, two minutes.”
-“This is at zero minutes. It’s several klicks off.”
-“Perhaps they went for a walk?”
-“It’s a dense forest. They’ve couldn’t have gone that far in two minutes.”
Ma Man left the analogue rice cooker behind and heaved himself off the ground. Yan Kuan brought up the visual. Yes, this was different. They were looking at a modernistic compound, pre-fab obviously, with a helicopter parked next to it, completely enclosed by the forest. The sound was different, too, a male voice going accent-free: “Mike, November, Oscar.”
-“Destination?”
-“ 36-03 north, 106-01 west.”
-“That must be in New Mexico. Try the visual.” Another zoom led then to an office building in the middle of nowhere, built on the hill overlooking the mesa above the Rio Grande gorge.
-“Sure, I forgot,” Ma Man said,” that’s the Fisher Laboratories. It’s so secret, they put a huge neon sign on the roof.”
CHAPTER 9
Bai Ai Rong (as it was known to its engineers), had traveled on the longest circle above the Pacific, crossing mountains, taigas, coastlines, tundras, and yet more mountains, not to mention various manmade demarcations on her way. Built with unheard-of materials, she was transparent to radar and impervious to border controls.
Reaching the 41st degree, she had switched off her engines to descend gently past a lonely, sleeping volcano, and further into a long valley of sun-burnt grass and irrigated activity. To the east, another mountain chain. The sun is shining, and Bai Ai Rong enjoys the good weather. In fact, she depends on it since her batteries alone, although the best in the world, would not keep her airborne for more than a few weeks, so her wings, an elastic half-crescent of ultra light semiconductor panels, soak in the sunlight and send its energy to her propellers. Across the underside of the wing boldface letters speak almost the truth: ‘EXPERIMENTAL SOLAR AIRBORNE VESSEL.’
Bai Ai Rong has detected the strong thermals rising against the slopes of the mountains and shifted course to make the most of it, swinging herself into virtuous spins higher and higher into the air. Two bald eagles have noticed and decided to take some interest, now following her in formation, making her almost look like an eagle herself.
Another jubilant swing and a shutter opens on the side of her underwing pod. A moment of hesitation, and out comes a beautiful creature, an impressive monarch butterfly so to see, perhaps 8 inch across the wingspan, twice the normal size, the distinctive orange-black feather pattern glistering in the sun. The creature flaps its wings a few times to create the air eddies that insects need to stay aloft (any engineer can explain to you that bumblebees cannot fly), wiggles up and down, back and forth, left and right, and then does something funny. It folds its wings into the shape of a cigar and starts to descend, keeping its posture upright, accelerating until it drops as fast as a stone. Ten thousand feet and two minutes later, equally unexpected, it unfolds its wings again — just in time to avoid contact with the treetops of California’s redwood forest. ‘32 degrees, 2 minutes, 23.03 seconds north, 120 degrees, 6 minutes, 7.11 seconds west,’ it thinks by itself, as it saunters through the air across a clearing in the forest and reaches a log cabin sitting there, as if by chance, looking somehow old, somehow restored, with a porch on its western side, facing the valley below, its main entrance set between two windows on the southern side, two northern windows, no windows to the east. The creature wiggles around the structure, curiously inspecting each opening. All windows are shut tight, and so is the door. There is nothing to do at the moment, so it decides to take up position in the grass below the door and await further developments.
Meanwhile, a second creature had exited Bai Ai Rong’s payload pod, flapped its wigs casually, folded them cirgarwise, dropped 10,000 feet, and arrived at 38 degrees, 0 minutes, 23.65 seconds north, 119 degrees, 59 minutes, 19.87 seconds west, where a faceless, whitish prefab structure of two brick-spaced units, angled into an L-shape, awaits its arrival. This creature, too, performs an inspection of the dwelling, and finds the main entrance ajar. It flaps inside without further ado.
Bai Ai Rong closes her payload shutter, activates her engines, and starts climbing across the Sierra Nevada. The eagles follow her for a while until the air gets too thin.
***
Liz was in excellent spirits. Her voyage through the entire corpus of Scotus opinions finally completed, she had reached, reached, well she had reached a state — physically, psychologically, metaphysically — a state to which only seriously mixed-up metaphors could do any justice. “Let’s go, let’s have a look at the cabin, they may need some input,” she had pestered Jim and thrown sex into the deal. It’s a secret, and it will remain a secret no matter how often you spread it: to boldly go where only the finest judicial minds have ever gone before — sex is different once you’ve arrived there. She had immediately called Pamela, who couldn’t agree more.
They had driven through the night, Jim behind the wheel, Liz behind a used copy of Mark Twain’s works. They had taken the wrong turn twice, but the GPS, working now since the cabin’s location had been established, had warned them with a prissy, well-pronounced “recalculating,” each time. “You have reached your destination,” it said now, still prissy.
Liz stepped into the bright morning sunshine. Leona and Zack appeared at the cabin’s door. There was something bawdy about them, perhaps it was their tousled hair, but then there is always something bawdy about tousled hair, so perhaps they didn’t get laid after all. Who’s getting laid if both are getting laid? Is it symmetric? Should she ask? She made a mental note.
“This is a lovely day, my friends,” she said. Twain had inspired her. “Above us is the glory of the sun; around it float the messenger-clouds, ready alike to bless the earth with gentle rain, or visit it with lightning, and thunder, and destruction; far below the said sun and the messenger clouds aforesaid, lying prone upon the earth in the verge of the distant horizon, mine eyes behold a lake, which is described and set forth in maps as Lake McClure. Further, across the valley, I see a mountain ridge, glowing by turns, with the warm light of the sun, as before mentioned, or darkly shaded by the messenger-clouds aforesaid. And about said sun, and said clouds, and around the said mountains…”
“Can you say that again?” Zack asked.
-“Sure I can,” Liz confirmed. “This is a lovely day, my friends …”
Leona embraced her from behind, and covered Liz’s mouth with both hands. They laughed.
Meanwhile, Jim carried the water boarding equipment into the cabin.
An oversized monarch butterfly rose from the grass, flapped its wings, and flew a few circles around the merry student conspirators, who ignored it. Then it disappeared into the cabin.
***
Joe restarted the Ferrari and accelerated. He’s pushing the pedal to the metal, gaining speed to the staccato of overhead streetlights. Skirting ancillary cars left and right, he’s racing down East River drive, left and right, crashing through a series of red lights. He’s skateboarding, jumping from lane to lane. All lanes blocked by lackadaisical clunkers? He thwacks one clunker from behind, which slips and hits the next. Both clunkers overturn, one boomerangs through the air, the other dives across the security rails and smashes into the ground. A fireball is born. He’s cruising. He is rolling, gliding, surfing, racing, better than sex, faster than the world. Snipers on rooftops? Joe returns the fire. A cop on a bike? Toast. An oversized SWAT truck blocking the road? He activates the after-burner. A nano-second left, he changes direction and tips the breaks. Precision work. His Ferrari breaks out its tail and de-places the truck. The SWAT team pump their automatics, but in vain. But there IS something with his back. He feels a hand on his shoulder. He turns around. It’s Alberrt.
-“You busy?”
-“No,” Joe replied, accelerating again, as an Apache heli dives off the outdated Twin Tower complex to thwart his advance. The Apache is very fast. He’s faster.
-“Wish I could do that,” Alberrt said.
-“It’s easy,” Joe replied. “Grand Theft Auto Four has anything the gamer wants. Driving insane cars at psychotic speeds. Running down innocent civilian with your insane car.” — he ran down a few innocent civilians — “GTA 4 gives us characters who you want to know and who are believable. As you progress through the story, you do various jobs for various people. Usually, you kill people,” — he killed a few people, PAFF, PAFF. “But as an added twist, it gives you an occasional morality choice. There are a few people you don’t actually have to kill,” — he killed a few more people, PAFF, PAFF. “Cool,” he said to himself.
-“Cool.”
-“What’s up?”
-“Can you find me a binocular?” Alberrt asked.
-“What’s up?” Joe asked again.
Albert stretched his slender body, and walked to the windows, which covered the entire south wall of the lab room.
-“I think we can see Los Alamos from here.”
-“Los Alamos?”
-“I need some inspiration.”
-“You would be the first to get any inspiration from Los Alamos. They don’t have night clubs.”
-“They built the first nuclear bomb there. Developed it. Invented it. The Manhattan Project.”
-“We’re finally getting nuclear? Terrorism or anti-terrorism?”
-“One of the guys was Richard Feynman. He is usually described as ‘no ordinary genius.’ He saved the standard model of particle physics by finding a way to deal with points of zero extension. Although, his contribution is a mixed blessing. String theory is partially motivated by the awkwardness of his approach.”
-“String theory, sure.”
-“String theory, a mixed blessing in itself. You know him from the Feynman diagrams.”
-“Fineman diagrams.”
-“Where time is symmetric and prone to reversal at quantum scales.”
-“Like it was yesterday.”
-“I don’t have to elaborate. At Los Alamos, he acted as a sounding board for Hans Bethe, head of the theory department. Got bored sometimes. Thought up some pranks. Like, like how to pick the combination locks that secured the nuclear secrets. One combination that worked on various locks was 27-18-28.”
-“That’s my birthday.”
-“Birthday, sure,” Alberrt said, as if his thoughts had left the room.
-“It can’t be my birthday, Alberrt.”
-“Really,” Alberrt said. “Come to think of it. Well, this wasn’t a birthday. It’s a transcription of the base of natural logarithms, Euler’s number, 2.71828 etc.”
-“I thought so.”
-“Feynman asked himself: which numbers would a physicist use.”
-“Don’t we all.”
-“Obama’s birthday, Alberrt added, mysteriously. “That’s too easy. Where can we find a binocular?”
Joe looks around. A nice aspect of the Fisher labs was its blatant lack of focus. The whole place was held together by Alberrt’s brain and Baltimore’s stare. They would certainly have binoculars somewhere, since they wouldn’t need them. Yes, right on the windowsill. Joe points to the windowsill. “How stupid,” Alberrt says, “I wasn’t looking.” He gets hold of the pair and points it in direction of the cumulus clouds on the horizon. The clouds are presiding over the Sangre de Christo range, as usual. Then he turns around, adjusts the focus, and eyes Joe.
-“I can see you Joe, I can see you loud and clear,” he says. He puts the binoculars down, and retreats to his computer.
-“What’s wrong with you,” Joe asks.
Alberrt doesn’t answer. He brings up Skype and clicks Baltimore. The blue irises appear almost instantly on the screen. His mind elsewhere, Alberrt is not thinking. “Vladimir,” he says.
Baltimore says nothing, but the blue irises speak eloquently. Alberrt’s mind goes blank. What’s his first name, what’s his first name?
-“Apologies, sincere apologies,” he adds. A pause.
“Okay,” Baltimore finally says.
-“Director,” — some kind of a comeback — “Director, I need your help nonetheless. I need background information about Obama’s back office in Chicago. Not his main office. His back office. The place for the black arts. The secrets. The re-assigned building of First National Bank. Downtown.”
-“You need my help, that’s sweet. Can’t you google that,” Baltimore replied.
-“When it comes to Obama, we cannot trust the internet,” Alberrt retorts.
-“You’re right,” Baltimore says, “Okay. Just so you know next time, my first name is John.”
***
Pamela looked at the large clock on the wall, and then at Liz, who stood next to her, her composure unusually tense. Five o’clock. Clarissa had already left (punctual as she was regarding downtime). A look at Liz, who nodded. Pamela lifted the phone handle and dialed the number of the local TV station. “Yes, this is the Alta Bates Medical Center, Department of Epidemiology,” she said as soon as somebody would listen, “I need to speak to the newsroom, it’s urgent. This is,” — a brief moment of hesitation.
- “Dean Timbers, so good to hear from you, how are you, doing,” a sonorous voice sprinkled from the receiver.
-“How do you know?” Pamela asked. “How do you know it’s me?”
-“Professor, don’t you know, we’ve mounted the comprehensive Berkeley area number recognition system. It’s very good, especially when it comes to suicide attempts.”
-“I…I had no plans,” Pamela uttered.
-“I’m glad to hear that,” the voice said, “since we are planning a follow-up on your story, how you ditched ‘Boalt Hall’ from the name of your school. Almost three hundred thousand bucks per letter. You paid. To the consultant. Awesome. You must have received an awful lot of positive feedback. We’d like to follow up on that. Perhaps with a personal profile.”
-“That’s not true, three hundred thousand. You’re completely off. It was only three thousand. Not even. You’re off by two orders of magnitude.”
-“Cool,” the voice came back. “Two orders of magnitude, we can handle that. A personal profile. What’s your take on that?”
A circular motion of the receiver, and Pamela had strangled this voice. A flashback: Hardy under the shower and on the phone with Laurel. Water dripping from the receiver.
-“Did you get that?” she asked Liz. Then she burst into tears.
-“They recognized your voice, or what?”
-“They recognized our number. They are saying I paid three hundred thousand bucks per letter, for the name change. For dropping Boalt Hall from the name of the school. Per letter.”
-“It was Bieber’s idea, wasn’t it?”
-“It’s not true. It wasn’t three hundred thousand. It was two thousand seven hundred seventy eight. It’s not true.”
-“You’ll be famous,” Liz said, but her aunt kept on sobbing. Liz regretted her words.
“This is going to end in tears,” Pamela cried.
-“It’s a number recognition system, not a voice recognition system. We’ll have to think up something.”
-“I can’t think.”
-“You’re in bad shape,” Liz said, “I can see that. I think we’ll have to take you to the Alta Bates Medical Center.”
***
They arrive in Liz’s Prius at the emergency entrance. “What are we going to do?” Pamela asks.
-“Keep crying,” Liz says. She parks next to the entrance, almost blocking it, gets out, opens Pamela’s door, grabs her hand, and leads her through the entrance to the reception, a longish desk with several stations — Berkeley, the inner-city hotspot. One sole receptionist is in attendance; late afternoon, down time for inner city life. Pamela is an esteemed jurist, but not an actors, and she’s cried so much now, no tears are left. But she tries hard.
 |
| Alta Bates Medical Center, Berkeley |
“How can I help you,” the receptionist says, a middle-aged woman uniquely qualified by her glasses.
-“This is my aunt,” Liz says, emphasizing Pamela with a gesture, “my aunt twice removed. She’s having a nervous breakdown.”
-“We don’t do nervous breakdowns. You’re on your own,” the receptionist explains.
-“It’s very serious,” Liz says, “she’s an academic. She has hallucinations.”
-“Acute hallucinations?”
-“Yes, acute.”
-“I'm glad to hear that. We can take her. First name.”
-“Doctor,” Liz answers. -“How do you spell that?”
-“Doctor, like in doctor.” -“Last name?”
-“Doctor is not her first name. It’s her title, one of her titles.”
-“So, she’s a doctor herself.”
-“Yes.”
-“Doctor,” the receptionist turns to Pamela, “what’s your own take on this?”
-“She is not a medical doctor. She is a Scientiae Juridicae Doctor.”
-“If you say so,” the receptionist replies. Then she’s interrupted by the zooming sound of her phone. She picks up the receiver. The receiver is cordless.
A thought.
“Aunt,” Liz whispers. “Walk down the hallway and do not listen to the receptionist when she calls you back. Make her follow you.”
-“Is absurdity idempotent?” Pamela whispers back.
-“Yes, trust me.” Pamela steps away from the counter and directs her body towards the hallway.
The receptionist, still on the cordless phone, loses interest in the emergency on the other end of the line. “Madam,” she calls out to Pamela, “Madam, you are entering a restricted area. That area is for authorized personnel only.” Pamela, as told, does not listen. “Madam, that area is for authorized personnel only,” the nurse yells as Pamela’s frame disappears further into the forbidden hallway.
-“Can’t you do something about your aunt,” the receptionist brushes at Liz. Liz thinks about Audrey Hepburn movies. We must look like a young deer, she tells her eyes.
-“My aunt has a delicate constitution,” she says, “both physically and mentally.” The receptionist slaps the handset onto the counter, gets up and into a sprint, pursuing Pamela. Liz, in turn, slips to the other end of the reception desk and grabs the handset of the leftmost reception station (wireless). Where are the restrooms? Right across the entrance hall. Does she need to pee? No. Let’s hope the signal carries. Liz makes it into the restroom, locks herself up, and activates the handset. It works. She dials the local TV station. “Yes, this is the Alta Bates Medical Center, Department of Epidemiology,” she says as soon as somebody answers. “I need to speak to the Newsroom. It’s urgent.” A click puts her through. “This is Dr. Smith of the Alta Bates Medical Center, Department of Epidemiology. We have an urgent warning for the citizens of Berkeley. A new mutation of the H+ N+ virus, the highly virulent swine flu virus, has been discovered today in three patients from the Berkeley area. We urge all citizens of Berkeley to avoid breathing contact with strangers and to wear flu masks in public…”
***
Dearborn Street, historic district, Chicago. A side alley. A side entrance. Perhaps the reason why they’ve picked the place, Jeremy conjectures. He could get in and out more or less unnoticed. An old, heavy metal door, belonging to an old, massive, brick-built building. Arches, ornaments, Gothic. An old, heavy, cylinder lock.
Inside the lock, a cylinder, or plug, which, when turned by the correct key, turns an attached cam. The cam pulls in on the bolt and the door can open. Inside the lock, a puzzle, which only the correct key can solve, or more precisely, can solve correctly (we will cheat). The main variations in lock design are defined by the nature of this puzzle. Our lock is a pin-and-tumbler design, one of the most common type of puzzles, and one of the easiest to pick — harder work will lie ahead.
The lock’s main components are small pins of varying length, each pin divided up into a pair. Each pair rests in a shaft running through the central cylinder plug, and into the housing around the plug. Springs at the top of the shafts keep the pin pairs in position. With no key inserted, each pair’s bottom pin rests completely inside the plug, while its upper pin is located roughly halfway in the plug and halfway in the housing. This keeps the plug from turning -- the upper pins block the plug.
Now insert the correct key. A series of notches in the key will push the pin pairs up in varying degrees — each pin pair just enough to insert all the upper pins completely into the housing, while leaving all lower pins completely in the plug. The pins line up at the shear line; the plug can move freely as no pins are blocking it, and you can open the lock.
As usual, we don’t have the correct key. And we don’t want to buy it, since people tend to talk, especially corrupt people. So we need picks — long, thin pieces of metal that curve up at the end, think dentist’s picks with very thin handles — and we need a tension wrench, that is, a wrench to create tension — even a thin, flathead screwdriver might do.
We insert the tension wrench into the keyhole and try to turn it. We won’t get far since the lock is locked, but the wrench will create tension which will create a slight ledge in the pin shafts.
Next, we insert a pick into the keyhole. With its curved end, we want to lift each pin pair up to the level at which the top pin moves completely into the housing (as if pushed by the correct key). As we do this (while maintaining the tension), we hear a slight click when a pin falls into position — the sound of the upper pin falling into place on the ledge in the shaft. The ledge keeps the upper pin wedged in the housing, so it won't fall back down into the plug.
Pin by pin, we move each pair into the correct position until all upper pins are pushed completely into the housing and all lower pins rest inside the plug. At this point, the plug rotates freely and we can open the lock. Which we do.
The back door opens onto an ancient bureaucratic hallway, tiles, granite, and painted sand stone. A cast iron balustrade is leading up the stairs and down to the basement. A banking interior basically untouched in seventy years, it still reeks of greenbacks and kickbacks. The motion detector guarding the staircase is broken; Jeremy knows this since he had an opportunity to visit the place in the afternoon in the guise of a Chicago Sun-Times reporter (motion detectors hate laser pointers).
This being a historic bank building, the vault is located in the basement. Most of its security features are in disrepair, but the mechanical combination lock is still working, or so Jeremy has been told. That’s perhaps enough security for a political operation anchored more in the black arts anyhow. And yet, in its Obama-esque ways, there is a twist to this operation, a laser barrier hidden in the invisible part of the spectrum, and its infrared rays guard the vault’s door. He knows this from copies of their interoffice emails, compliments of Vladimir. He glides down the stairs, and there it is, the Coutts vault, the last of its kind, a true dinosaur, 6000 years old, like all dinosaurs. Ha-ha.
Jeremy reaches for the NX can in his breast pocket and sprays the neon-xenon mix into the room. The infrared laser polarizes the xenon, which, in turn, tickles the neon. Photoluminescence. Gleaming and twinkling, two red beams materialize out of nowhere. Raising his legs, he tiptoes diligently across the beams. He makes a mental note: don’t forget the beams on your way out.
And now the lock. Baltimore has assembled the pertinent data for every back-office member and their kin. That’s a lot of numbers. Alberrt has written a clever algorithm to sort through the digital soup (let’s hope it’s clever), and fed the results to the SoftDrill, a nifty auto dialer invented by the late Mas Hamilton. Hamilton, an MIT dropout just like Jeremy, had build it to demonstrate the power of finite set theory — it cracks safes going through the most likely combinations — until he was pushed out in a freak car accident. One wonders. Ultimately, you’re on your own, Alberrt has assured him, even tapping on his shoulder (as close as Alberrt would get to anybody, he suspected).
So he parks the SoftDrill on the floor and dials by hand: zero four zero eight six one. An intimate noise, a new friend signaling yes in the dark. No wonder they are down in the polls, Jeremy thinks. It’ too easy. Obama’s birthday. The door opens.
Jeremy flashes his mag light into the vault. No gold. Nothing from Kenya. Nothing from Rockwell. Elderly file cabinets of various sizes arranged haphazardly against the wall. Say what you want, it’s alphabetic. The O has its own cabinet, unsurprisingly perhaps. The document is tucked away in its own blue portfolio exactly where it should be, under Birth Certificate. Jeremy opens his bag, brings out his own portfolio, opens it, and replaces Obama’s sheet by a sheet of his own. Closes the blue portfolio and files it back. Shuts the file cabinet. Leaves the vault and closes the door. Flips the dials on the combination lock. Remembers the infrared laser beams. Hushes back up the stairs, leaves the building and closes the door. A surgeon sewing up a hopeless cancer patient.
He dials Alberrt on his prepaid cell phone.
***
Joe is proud of himself. The first real assignment, worth three hundred kay in total. He could have run away with it, but it’s so sweet they trusted him. The money is split across three brown envelopes. Two envelopes have already changed hands, the third one is still waiting in his knapsack on the back seat next to him. “Waikiki Bananas,” the taxi driver interrupts, gesturing with both hands towards a reddish, blinking glow over the dark, volcanic profile of the island, “you won’t be disappointed.”
-‘If you can’t see it from here, you can’t see it from Wasilla,’ Joe thinks to himself, but changes his mind as the neon sign itself comes into view. They drive along the beach for a while. Waikiki surf dances to the sign’s magenta beat under a purple horizon. The Taxi driver gestures again: “Sex on the beach.” Is this a come-on, Joe thinks, but apparently it isn’t, since the cab driver, continues apace, until they reach a rickety wooden gate built into the dunes. Joe briefly considers whether he should have the guy waiting for him, take him back to Honolulu, or to the beach, but then thinks the better of it.
This place too much. He is used to the SantaCafé back home with its large crowds and its sexual chaos (much of it commercial). But here, too many dentures are incomplete, and patrons look as if they will sliding a condom across the table to start a conversation. His man fits right in. He is already waiting at the central bar, unmistakably with the dark complexion, moustache, and a questionable T-shirt that cannot hide the excess hair on his chest. How could this guy possibly work for a health department? Joe flashes the brown envelope. A broad smile of recognition appears on Khalid Mohammed’s face (the name alone). “I’ll buy you a beer,” he says to Joe, then grabs the envelope cheerfully. “Trust me,” he adds.
-“You can buy a new T-shirt now,” Joe remarks. Khalid nods conspiratorially. “You have to wait for our signal, okay,” Joe continues, “you’ll get it by email, coded through the sender’s address. JohnCock96. The message body contains one number. The time next day, in military notation.” Khalid nods again. Joe unfinishes his beer and leaves. He’ll pick up somebody somewhere else. He leaves the premises. The taxi driver is still waiting outside.
CHAPTER 10
There she sits, waiting for her man. She isn’t Liz. She can’t study Scotus opinions on the fly. She can’t even read Jane Austen when nervous. She rarely reads Jane Austen, in fact, never. She likes Austen, at least she assumes she likes Austen, she’s seen the movies, it’s just that she is too nervous most of the time. Especially now.
She sits in a rented car with matching colors. Matching the campus town turned inner city. A brownish metallic coating with scratches. Brownish? Well, the AVIS agent had taken her fake ID, and studied it the way novice agents would study a fake ID (they’re all novices), and then studied her wig, a real wig, but mousy brown because her real hair is blond, and then studied her flu mask (that she wore in fake observance of the latest H+N+virus), and then studied her shades, (sunglasses with broad temple arms, making her look like Jacky Kennedy or Grace Kelley — although she did not wear the silky headscarf that they would have worn), and then asked for her credit card (the agent), a real card but matching her fake ID, and then asked whether she had any preferences, and as she indicated her preference for a simple car in a simple color, he was trying to make eye contact (he was quite chiavabile), but failed to do so because of her shades, so he said: ‘simple, that’s an interesting concept,’ (he was possibly at UCB, some master program, humanities), and she, whose attempt to reciprocate eye contact had been thwarted by her shades as well, she had replied: ‘a color that would blend into a campus town turned inner city,’ and he had smiled and said ‘I understand exactly what you mean,’ and grabbed a key from the shelf and completed the paperwork, and led her to this brownish Ford Fiesta on the lot outside, and took her around the car and through all the scratches it had already accumulated in its brief rental career, and then said ‘this is the color you need, the scratches are for the inner city part.’
It would have been easy for him to make a pass at her. He could have said ‘why don’t you take a color that matches your eyes,’ — the evergreen come-on, and then follow up with ‘let me see your eyes,’ — clichés have their advantages, these agents, they must get laid all the time, but he did not say ‘why don’t you take a color that matches your eyes,’ and she was too nervous anyhow (although her orgasms were actually better when she was very nervous), or, rather than waiting for him, she could have started it, the ever-ready Berkeley law coquette, like, like ‘I need something that matches my eyes,’ and then remove her glasses to give him a good look. Esprit de l’escalier. The possibilities were endless. Evergreen, funny expression, not exactly evergreen.
There she sits. Their plan depended on his sense of his Confucian predictability, his sense of duty toward kin and company. She doesn’t dare to look at her watch. He is delayed. No, he isn’t. Instead, he is in good spirits. She had observed him closely now, during the whole term. The weight on his shoulders was clearly lifting, the memories of Abu Ghraib were fading, and the Lexus was scratch-less — no bumper-stickers to be seen, not even something along the lines of ‘how is that hopey-changey thing working out for ya’. She doesn’t dare to observe the unfolding fun of Lexus-ownership too closely — a person sitting in a car doing nothing is always suspicious, especially when she looks at you— but Yoo ignores her brownish clunker parked two rows away and presses the beep joyfully, the Lexus responding in kind, its blinkers echoing his emotions. He opens the door, and — no, he does not throw his attaché case on the passenger seat with an improvised wrist shake — but still, there is spring in his movements and in his shutting the door and driving off. She follows. She has to stay directly behind him, suspicious or not.
***
Jim readjusts the clownish wig with his right hand and feels for the virus mask. It is still in place. He would blend in, the local TV station had scared enough people with its virus warning. He feels for his shades, which are too large, and extraneous under today’s overcast sky. He readjusts the wig. The wig coming off at the wrong moment, that was the last thing anybody wanted to happen. He tests the stroller again, pushing its handle up and down. The suspension still works, sure. Another uneasy glance at the baby doll. Doll isn’t the right word. This is the perfect replica of a life-size baby, hand-painted with the fine details of real life skin tones, blemishes, natural hair, even the scent is right. They had found this wonder of artificial life with four clicks on Ebay. Expensive, though, more than 2,000 bucks. They had been too busy to wonder why other people would pay a fortune for a perfect baby replica, but Selena Saxon, who had created this marvel with obvious professional pride, didn’t deign to answer the obvious question on her otherwise loquacious website.
He cast a glance down the alley. Liz was standing on the corner, wig, sunglasses, flu mask, radiating true grit somehow. Would they ever have children together? Would he ever propose to her? She would possibly laugh him off. Any moment now. Liz would make a sign. There wasn’t much telepathy between them, so he had insisted on a crisp signal. Liz would raise both hands in an unnatural gesture. They had rehearsed the signal.
***
Zack plays with his gadget. Somewhat over-designed for a one-off device, it bears little resemblance to a car key. He had tested it surreptitiously, no need to test it again on one of the innocent cars parked on either side of the street. It would open any car. He could be sure. Liz stands exactly opposite to him on the other side, erect, still, alert. She is overdoing it a bit, he feels, her posture belied by her improbable disguise, or vice versa. The beep turns in her right hand like a worry bead.
The beep stops turning. Liz raises both hands simultaneously above her head.
***
John Yoo takes the shortcut, as always, and turns left into Oxford. He doesn’t like this narrow one-way street, cut a few years ago across a previously abandoned car park terrain by Berkeley’s communist municipality to provide the place with a European-style high street — you had to park your car next to the curb and keep everybody behind you waiting. A narrow pavement running along upscale shops for upscale pedestrians to bump into each other as appropriate. Quite a few of them are wearing flu masks now, because of the virus warning on TV yesterday evening. His first reaction had been one of pity for the common man, but he is having second thoughts now, planning to tell his children to be careful when he gets home. Make a mental note. Whenever he drives past these tightly parked cars, he remembers his driving instructor, who had warned him of unruly children chasing each other through the gaps between the bumpers.
A fuzzy movement from the left. He hits the brakes. A baby carriage right in front of his bumper. A man stumbling, lying on the pavement, the Lexus screeching to a halt. Why had this guy to stumble? Yoo gets out, now really concerned, both about the man and about his own self. “Are you okay,” he asks, twice.
“What happened?” the man stutters.
“Are you hurt,” he asks again, thinking that the guy ought to know what happened.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” the man replies, still lying on the pavement.
***
Liz and Zack flip their gadgets, step off the curb, and sneak up to driverless Lexus from either side. Liz pops the left door, slips inside, shuts the door behind her, and disappears on the floor behind the front seats. Zack pops the right door, slips inside, shuts the door, crouches next to Liz. They are as invisible as two adults hiding in the rear of an A- sedan could possibly be.
***
The man is getting up. There is something funny about this guy. Is he wearing a wig? Yoo casts a glance at the baby in the carriage. Well, the baby is real.
“I’m okay,” the man says.
-“I’m so sorry,” Yoo asserts mechanically.
A horn blows from behind. Yoo turns around. It’s the brownish Ford that has been following him for unclear reasons all the way from the campus with a campy woman behind the wheel. Another horn blow. The woman waves her hand. The baby man grabs the handle of his carriage and disappears with the baby. A second horn chiming in from further behind. Little Italy. The shopping crowd starts to pay attention. Something is not right, he can smell it. Let’s get away from this. He gets back into the car. More smells, as he nestles into the driver’s seat, he has a sensitive nose. He closes the door. Something cold and metallic is touching his neck.
***
John Yoo follows orders. For the time being. Until he starts thinking again. They won’t have much time. There’s a side alley just 50 feet from the scene of the crime, barely 15 seconds into their outlaw career, and it features a defunct car-repair shop, which they’ve rented under false pretenses. “Turn here,” Liz says in a new alto voice that she hasn’t practiced long enough. Yoo turns.
***
The garage shutters crack morosely. Chang Man Yoon, who’s operating them, has been told to hide in the corner, Yoo should not see him, obviously. The Lexus turns wistfully into the dimly-lit shop, the brownish Ford in tow. Liz, still holding the gun to Yoo’s neck, has reached into the shopping bag for a bluish leather thing, handing it to Zack. “Stop,” she commands, as if Yoo could go any further. Where is Jim? Anyhow, now or never. Zack, with a single gesture, straps the leather thing over Yoo’s head. It’s a sensory deprivation hood, used for psycho-therapy or kinky sex. If he could only see himself, Leona thinks one of her dirty thoughts, but Yoo cannot see himself; instead, he’s overcome by a sensation of complete confinement. Jim appears with his stroller in the opening, belatedly. Chan Man has the shutters cracking down, cWhat are we going to do?racking. “Get out,” barks Liz in her new voice, but Yoo cannot hear her under his kinky hood. It takes Liz a little while to realize this, they had failed to anticipate the hood’s effect. Stupid. Is this still plan A? She sticks the fake gun into Yoo’s side. Yoo reacts, gets up, hits the car frame with his hooded head. Well, the hood is well-padded.
They are on a tight schedule, Liz knows. Removing the hood, so Yoo can regain the initiative? “Hold him tight,” she orders Zack, falls on her knees, and unbuttons Yoo’s trousers. A hasty blow job to keep Yoo confused? No, they need Yoo’s clothes to perfect Chang Man’s disguise. Meanwhile, Jim tears Yoo’s jacket off his shoulders, the tie, the shirt. Yoo’s standing there now, stark naked, the head covered by the lewd hood in bluish-gleaming leather, the belly protruding, the genitals dangling, the brogues still on his socked feet. He wears long socks. As many hard-working professors, Yoo is a bit fatter than anticipated, Chang will look ridiculous in Yoo’s clothes. Plan A minus. Chang leaves his corner, and hands another device to Liz, a longish metallic stave, not unlike a portable metal detector. A swipe of Yoo’s clothes. Nothing. A swipe of Yoo’s body. The metal detector squeaks gotcha. Yoo’s watch is the culprit. Yes, it hides a GPS marker; the geographical coordinates of downtown Berkeley appear on the detector’s display. That’s easy. Fortunately, it’s not a Mickey Mouse watch, preferred by so many disgruntled Berkeley professors, but a decent Omega model with a bland face, possibly selected for Yoo by the Secret Service. James Bond could wear it on a bad day. Liz tries to remove the watch from Yoo’s wrist. Yoo resists, he is coming to his senses. He knows. They know. A kerfuffle. The forces of darkness lose, and Liz hands the watch to Chang Man, who straps it on. Yoo is still standing there, still stark naked, the genitals still swinging a bit. Inchiavabile. A thought. Another swipe with the GPS signal detector along the socks, reaching down to the shoes. Another gotcha squeak from the detector. A second locator must be hidden in his shoes. Another kerfuffle? Liz has a better idea. Give me the shackles, she orders Chang, and snaps them around Yoo’s ankles, left and right. Yoo tries to resists, and stumbles in the process, lying on the ground now. A second pair of shackles neutralizes his arms. His shoes gleam in the dark. They are not radioactive, but much too large for Chang Man’s tiny feet. We’ll need new footwear for Yoo, she thinks, gets hold of a knife, and attacks the suspicious shoe. “Have you ever tried to undo a patent leather shoe with a knife?” Leona asks helpfully. Liz needs to be careful, the locator must survive intact, as Yoo must survive intact himself. The locator turns out to be a tiny metal marble, hidden in the sole.
Plan A minus. Chang Man Yoon won’t wear Yoo’s clothes, but it doesn’t really matter. He wraps the Yoo’s double-duty Omega watch around his wrist, grabs his own travel bag, and takes charge of the Lexus. Somebody activates the shutters, they crack open. Yoon backs up, turns the Lexus around in the narrow alley (no scratches, no scratches), and disappears in the direction of Oxford Street.
***
He’s pushing the pedal to the metal. Being late is the primary angst of all Koreans, and today’s angst is more justified than usual by the latest threats from the Transport Security Administration, issued yesterday after the involuntary demise of yet another Al Quaida operative in downtown Pakistan. The security screening will be harrowing, lines stretching into eternity. Or infinity. What’s the difference, Chang wonders. Distracted, he almost misses the interstate exit, but the Lexus GPS won’t let him, so he turns right at the last moment and follows the left turn of the overpass across the freeway toward the three arches of San Francisco International airport. With its rickety scaffold construction, the terminal looks more like the building site of a new theme park, but the car park to his right looks solid enough. He should find a conspicuous parking lot, Liz had asked him. Let them catch Yoo’s car in flagranti. Finally, on the 11th floor, he spots a lot next to the ramp. He maneuvers the Lexus into the space, grabs his own bag, grabs Yoo’s attaché case, gets out, locks the car. He will miss the plane. He runs. He looks ridiculous. He suffers a total lack of gravitas, the more so since Yoo’s fancy case and Chang’s own bag make an odd couple. The agent will notice, call security and have him arrested for inconsistency.
He enters the terminal. There are queues everywhere, except for his flight, the Madrid flight. It must have closed already. One Madrid agent is still present, sitting behind the counter, anticipating him with the smile of a trained oncologist. “You’re closed already, right,” Chang says.
-“You will live,” the agent replies — no, that’s not what he is saying, he says: “No, Sir, the plane was delayed on the incoming leg, we’re still open.” Yoon hands him his e-ticket and a counterfeit passport in Yoo’s name. The passport was expensive, and looks the part, used and worn. The agent ignores the ticket (they always do) and confides Chang’s new identity to the booking computer. A split second. The agent’s forehead wrinkles, relaxes, his black hair whips. He raises his head, his eyes no longer sad, but positively gleaming. “Dr. Yoo, Professor John Yoo of Berkeley University, you must be the author of the famous torture memos. You are a celebrity now. And still so young. Proud to meet you, Sir.” The agent reaches across the counter, grabs Chang’s right hand, and shakes it with an awkward gesture. Chang didn’t expect this. He looks at his hand.
-“All Chinese look the same,” he muddles the issue.
-“I thought you were Korean,” the agent retorts as if doesn’t matter, “anything to check in?” Chang raises Yoo’s attaché case. The agent nods approvingly; unbeknownst to him, Chang has inherited a Swaine Adeney Brigg case, the sum of 250 years of British craftsmanship, gracefully bestowed upon the esteemed jurist by some well-heeled admirer of robust interrogation techniques. Now the bag. “This is carry-on,” Chang says, reluctantly raising his own luggage piece into the agent’s purview, who’s eyes dim a little.
-“It’s okay,” the agent comes back, he’s seen it all, terminal cases, slipping celebrity standards. He hands the passport back to Chang. “Have a very fine trip to Spain Sir, you deserve your holiday.”
-“Not yet, not yet,” Chang replies. “Will I have enough time for the security check?”
-“Nobody gets lost in an airport, believe me,” the agent replies mysteriously, and points to the left. “Better hurry a bit.” Chang hurries.
There are two lines extending, meandering, bulging out of the security zone. They’re not well-defined, passengers are shuffling more or less next to each other; there is a lot of body language.
Chang has chosen the left queue. An error. The right queue is moving faster. Chang isn’t in an expansive mode, but he’s so nervous, he can’t help to chat up the complete stranger next to him, a gaunt, tall, elderly gentleman. “The other line is moving faster,” Chang says.
- “Torre’s observation,” the gentleman retorts dryly.
-“Huh?”
-“Torre’s observation. ‘The other line is moving faster.’”
-“I didn’t know.”
-“Now you do,” the gaunt gentleman replies while he — ever-so-gentlemanly — is making one step forward. It’s one step too many, practically getting him in front of Chang now, and, as if to kill two birds with one stone, he’s adding, “note the parsimony of Torre’s statement; Torre could have said ‘the other line is always moving faster,’ but we don’t need explicit universal quantification here since we can treat the queue itself as a free variable. Torre’s observation. A beautiful statement.” Another step, and the gaunt man has posited himself squarely in front of Chang.
-“I don’t believe it,” Chang says, using his usual defense. He should have thought of something better, he realizes, as the gaunt man turns his head around, purposefully, 180 degrees or more. “That’s a pity,” he says, “since it’s an easy corollary of Torre’s observation, implied by the comparative verb phrase, that our own line is moving as well.”
Their queue is now struggling past a large, old-fashioned announcement board, one of the kind that informs about wedding receptions in the Garden Room, black background, removable, white plastic letters, and it reads: “As always, passengers may notice a variety of security me sures at U.S. airports to include the use of physical bag checks, random gate screening, explosive detection tehcnology, canine teams and behavor detection officers.” Should we suspect spelling errors? An official is posited casually next to the board, practically leaning on it, and she’s straight from central casting. The two girls next to Chang — yes, there are now two girls next to him now, rich girls, horse girls — have observed the misplaced letters, pointing at the board, giggling, exchanging views on the federal government. If looks could kill. But that’s where the story ends; the officer is trained in the behavior of rich horse girls that don’t blow up planes. The girls are in front now.
They have reached a wall of glass doors (bulletproof), which separate the TPA area from the unsecured part of the terminal. Canine team member are breathing fire while being kept on a very short leach by their human guidance officers. Another dedicated officer, also human, inspects Chang’s counterfeit passport with a brief nod. Plan A (there would be no Plan B in this case). Next are the metal detectors. The detectors supposedly know about GPS locators, since many high-placed officials are obliged to carry them these days, so Chang should be okay with Yoo’s two detectors on his body, but you never know. And they might already have the new backscatter x-ray machines in use, which undress you radioactively before their eyes. Who knows how these machines would react to the locators. Yes, there’s one backscatter machine parked on the wall, two metal closets facing each other, space in between, blue marks on the on the floor where the citizen will surrender.
Commotion right in front of him. No, it’s not the gaunt gentleman who has jumped the entire queue by now, it’s a young guy. He’s asked to go to the backscatter. “Why me?” he protests. He has been selected at random, he’s being told right into his olive-toned face. He does not believe it, we’re all behavior detection specialists, aren’t we. “X-ray means cancer,” he says.
-“Not necessarily,” the backscatter operation officer comes back — there could be a grin in his eyes.
-“But sometimes.”
-“Stuff happens” — still the eventuality of this grin.
-“You can’t force me into this machine, I know my rights.”
The young guy is informed of the opt-out alternative, which means a full pat-down.
Chang, studiously ignoring the young man’s troubles, has placed everything metallic in a dirty plastic basket for the baggage screening tunnel and strides toward the metal detector. He stops, takes a deep breath (he’s ticklish), and marches through the detector’s arch. There’s a funny noise. He turns around. A digital display blinks: ‘GPS locator.’ Plan A. So far. Meanwhile, the young guy is led past the metal detector toward the scene of the patdown, an open cubicle next to the conveyor belt at the back-end of the screening tunnel. He’s asked to stand upright and raise his arms. “If you touch my junk, I’ll have you arrested,” the young guy shouts, so everybody can hear.
-“You gave up a lot of rights when you bought your ticket,” the officer replies.
Chang will never learn how this story ends (badly), as the screening tunnel agent taps on his shoulder. There is a problem with his luggage, but they have expected this.
-“Sir, could you please unpack your bag for me,” the security agent commands with flat, evenhanded politeness. Chang unpacks the bag. The officer is not interested in his underwear, nor his reading material, nor in the inconspicuous pouch containing a chestnut-colored, totally misleading wig, not in his toiletry with unmanly makeup lotions or an oversized box with wet tissues. He’s searching for the things that created two suspicious spots on the baggage screening monitor. And there they are, two fist-sized metallic balls. The agent turns the spheres in various directions, around several hypothetical axes, as if symmetry counts.
-“Sir, what are these,” he asks.
-“They are my talisman,” Chang replies — the prepared answer.
-“Why do you need two talismen, isn’t one enough?” Chang did not expect this comeback, but it doesn’t matter.
-“I inherited them from my grand aunt. I had to promise het to keep them together, always.”
The agent weighs the spheres in his hands.
-“They are hollow, right? What do they contain?”
-“Nothing, as you said. They are hollow.”
-“I think I can’t let you travel with these.”
Chang picks his key ring from the dirty plastic x-ray basket, selects a suspiciously looking tiny hook, picks one sphere, turns in around, and inserts the hook into a tiny hole at its top. Gadget time. The ball snaps open. It’s empty. The other sphere is empty too. The agent shakes his head. Chang is so nervous, he gets cocky: “My grand-aunt inherited them as well, they were used by the Illuminati during the great Planetary Alignment. They were used for secret precious stones.” The agent shakes his head again.
-“Can I see your passport, Sir,” he asks.
Chang hands him the counterfeit passport.
-“My God, John Yoo, Professor Yoo, the author of the famous torture memos. Keeping America safe. Proud to meet you, Sir.” He hands the passport back to Chang, picks up the patriotic spheres and puts them back into Chang’s bag (between the reading material, not the underwear).
-“May I ask you, Sir, you related to the Illuminati?”
Chang recalls the gaunt gentleman with this math-speak that worked so well.
-“By transitivity,” he replies. “My aunt was. It runs in the family.”
-“The Great Alignment, you’ve got anything to do with that?”
-“Haven’t you seen Barbara Croft? The Great Alignment was 7000 years ago. It failed.”
-“My God, that was before the beginning of time. Have a good trip, Sir.”
***
Screens, display, technology. Not as luxe as the new Chinese spy offices, more an interior to match the outside of an ordinary ten story black-glass-building, oversized, sure, located next to an oversized car park area, sure, but nothing special. Many movies have tried to emulate its interior feel, and too many have succeeded.
It’s night, the car park is largely empty, and Special Agent Smith is lost in his thoughts. He’s part of the elite GPS unit that monitors the location of high-value individuals like politicians, celebrities, outlaws, people that should not disappear on the wrong side of NineEleven. Andrew Young, his trusted colleague, has covertly fallen asleep, and he’s snoring, he must have missed the last AA meeting. We’re here because something is going to happen soon. And yes, it’s an electronic alert that is beeping vigorously all of a sudden. Smith uses his elbow.
Both agents are now looking at a large screen, because that’s what modern spies do for a living, like everybody else. This particular screen displays a lot of dots, scattered over a large map of Northern America. One lonely dot is blinking, and it’s located to the east of the continent, over the open water of the Atlantic Ocean. A closer look. Dr. John Yoo, the dot’s capture says.
-“John Yoo,” Young reads out aloud. He’s supposed to know about the guy, like he’s supposed to know about all the dots, but John Yoo has somehow fallen through the cracks of his alcohol-addled brain.
-“It’s the torture guy,” Smith says, “the enhanced interrogation memo person. He’s on GPS because the Spains may want him.”
-“Let’s track his history. He’s bound for Europe.”
-“Match him with the flight map.”
Agent Smith works the keyboard. It’s IBERIA flight 2450 from San Francisco International to Madrid, Spain.
-“He’s not supposed to go to Spain.”
-“Perhaps he changed his mind.”
-“Howso?”
-“Perhaps he’s against torture now.”
-“Doesn’t make sense.”
-“People change their mind all the time. In particular our people. That’s why they need us in the first place.”
-“Still doesn’t make sense.”
-“He had a Paulus moment, he’s changing sides. Righting wrongs.”
-“We have no time for this, Andrew.”
-“He’s at which alert level.”
-“Let’s see…” — the alert level was supposed to be integrated with the display, but the promised software had not worked and the liaison person was in hospital with failed suicide — “…Holy shit, it’s bad, he’s red, he’s red.”
-“Absurd.”
-“He’s red, code red, we have to inform the White House.”
-“Stupid, a little jurist nobody has ever heard of.”
-“He’s red, it’s not our fault.”
-“Obama’s sleeping.”
Smith picks up the phone.
***
The White House Situation Room is a 5,000-square-foot conference room and intelligence management center located on the ground floor of the West Wing of the White House. It is run by the National Security Council staff for the use of POTUS (President of the United States) and his advisors to deal with crises at home and abroad and to conduct secure communications with the outside.
The Situation Room was created in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy after the Cuban Bay-of-Pigs debacle (which was blamed at the time on the lack of real-time information). The room has secure communications systems built into it and the walls contain wood panels that hide different audio, video and other systems. It is staffed by a number of senior officers from various agencies in the intelligence community and from the military. These individuals stand watch on a 24-hour basis, constantly monitoring world news and keeping senior White House staff apprised of significant events.
Rahm Emmanuel, the talented White House Chief of Staff, enters the premises. “Fuck,” he says, “fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”
The senior officer in charge of night-time operations (his name is classified) assumes waiting mode. He knows Emmanuel well, in particular the inflections of his expletives. Is Emmanuel done already? Not yet.
“Fuck.”
Now Emmanuel is done; there is something definitive about the pitch of the last expletive, something to end all expletives for the next 15 seconds. “Yes, Sir,” the senior officer says, carefully emphasizing both syllables equally, “it’s the way the cookie crumbles. Dr. John Yoo, former deputy director of the OLC under George W. Bush, author of important judicial briefs that guided the White House through the jungle of Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. He is bound for Madrid, where he is scheduled to arrive at seven thirty am. local time on IBERIA flight 2450. Spain. Spain! He’s wanted for interrogations in Spain, by this judge, you know, Garzon, or whatever. NSA thinks he lost it. They suspect a Paulus moment. Okay, well, perhaps they don’t mean it, they are intellectuals. Anyhow, it could be serious. The ramifications for the news cycle. What with the President’s address on bipartisanship in two days in Concord, Vermont?”
-“Fuck.”
-“We’ll have to do something.”
-“Fuck.”
-“We need to think about our options.”
-“Fuck.”
-“There are five options, Sir. One: we do nothing. Downside, newscycle in jeopardy.”
-“Fuck.”
-“Two, we intercept him, and calm him down. Downside, we may founder on his free will.”
-“Fuck.”
-“Three, we render him back to the United States. Downside, he might go straight to the talkshows and spill the beans there.”
-“Fuck.”
-“Four, we take him out on his arrival in Spain. Downside, we own a corpse.”
-“Fuck.”
-“Five, we take out the entire plane. Downside, collateral damage.”
-“Fuck.”
-“We need an executive decision.”
-“Fuck.”
-“We’ll have to wake the President.”
-“Fuck.”
***
He is having sleeping problems lately. Sometimes, he dreams that he can’t sleep, and when he awakes, only his boner is proof of Morpheus’ embrace. No, terrible, let’s edit that. Only his boner is proof that he actually did do sleep. Not great either. Only his boner is proof…he’s turning his head in the plumped pillows of his king-size maple wood bed. He hears a voice. Hillary’s voice. “It’s 3 am and your children are safe and asleep. But there is a phone in the White House, and it’s ringing (ring). Something’s happening in the world. Your vote will decide who answers that call (ring). Whether it’s someone who already knows the world’s leaders (ring), knows the military, someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world (ring). It’s 3am, and your children are safe and asleep. Who do you want answering that phone?”
He’s awake now. The red phone rings.
***
He can’t sleep on planes. Perhaps you can sleep in Business Class, he never traveled in Business Class, it’s only two rows away, you can practically hear them snoring through the curtain. It’s not the size of the seat, he’s economy size himself, and he’s okay sitting upright. He was a horse in his previous life, sometimes he falls asleep standing. No, it’s the angst of people being caught in the 99 percent bracket. Or it’s the vibes of the girl in the seat across the aisle who is plowing patiently through Ann Coulter’s latest book under the guidance of blinding overhead reading lights. The elderly lady between him and the aisle isn’t sleeping either. But she pretends. Like everybody else. There is so much behavior going on. He has set his Iphone alarm nonetheless.
His Iphone vibrates. He enjoys the simmering gizmo touch on his skin longer than strictly necessary. He will have to unsleep lady next to him, who has yet to recover from a visit to her bipolar hairdresser. He will have to get up, open the overhead bin (things could fall out), get hold of his bag, get hold of the ray balls, close the overhead bin (things could fall out), and make it to the lavatory. Wig and makeup can wait until they’ve arrived in Madrid. He will try to get out without provoking her reaction. He will step over her legs without touching her in any which way whatsoever, and she will keep up appearances in any which way whatsoever, since she is person with a round, funny face. So he gets up, climbs across her legs, inadvertently touching her knees of course, or other parts of her round body, but she understands, or pretends.
Inside the lavatory, he sits down and pees, although that wasn’t the purpose of his visit. Why taking care of the locators now? It’s supposed to confuse Obama, should he be reckless enough. Taking out the entire plane, it would possibly increase his ratings; politicians are reckless. He unbinds the Omega watch, and positions one GPS marble next to the lavabo. He opens one with his nifty hook. The watch just fits, thanks to its pliable leather belt. He snaps the ball shut. The GPS signal is trapped inside the sphere now, supposedly unable to penetrate the iron clams. Now the other one. That’s easy, the metallic marble disappears easily inside the second ball. No more signals from Dr. John Yoo. Lost without a trace above the ocean blue. Chang returns to his seat, de-seats in reverse, the lady still pretending. “Feels good, doesn’t it,” she says to Chang.
-“Huh,” Chang says.
-“Peeing.”
***
Nobody is waiting for the belt sign to extinguish. Buckles snap, the people in business class are all de-seated already, Chang recognizes the gaunt gentleman from Torre’s observation. With his middle seat, Chang is in a tight spot, but the fat lady senses his dilemma, unbuckles her belt, and rises too. He slides past her (don’t ask), gets hold of his bag, and makes it to the lavatory before the aisle is filled with impatient passengers. The improbable wig, untouched by the fundamentalist security agent, is still in the pouch. He puts it on. The first wig of his life. Now the makeup. He knows what to do; Orientals use makeup all the time. Two or three minutes, and his face has acquired the complexion of a newly discovered Nordic tribe. The hair is blond, the eyebrows are perhaps a bit too yellowish, but the bluish contact lenses are above suspicion. Perhaps too much above suspicion, there’s something transcendental to his new irises, but it’s definitely unyoo-ish. He won’t wear sunglasses, it would only attract attention. He has to get back to his seat to fetch Yoo’s attaché case. Passengers are already shuffling toward the exits, but the friendly lady is still there. “Oh dear,” she laughs, “you look great. The wig, my god, wish I had one like you.” Chang pales under his makeup. He straps the attaché case to his mediocre, but versatile travel bag. The lady owns him now.
***
These two assets didn’t take much time to prepare for this gig, just wearing sunglasses and Mackintosh raincoats, but it doesn’t really matter since they are in cahoots with the Spanish old guard anyhow, the forces of darkness inherited from the Franco regime that still run the security services. Our assets entered the concourse through the security entry, they carry their pieces, and below, on the tarmac, a covert vehicle is waiting for Yoo. He will spend a few lonely hours there until he’s assigned to the US marshal who’s already flying in and will take him back on the next flight to Quantico, VA, for a robust debriefing.
Yoo had a seat near the front end of the plane, they know, two rows from business class, fairly close to the front exit of the Boeing Triple Seven. He should be among the second batch of passengers to deplane. But he isn’t. Some oriental faces, but nothing Yoo-ish. They are not supposed to get nervous, they are trained in face recognition. The next two passengers swing by, an overcoiffed elderly lady with a campy male person of uncertain race on the arm; they are engaged in useless conversation. Behind them another oriental face. Not Yoo either. Three bored executives, Silicon Valley types, overtraveled. Etc.
***
Chang doesn’t know whether it’s a disappointment for her, but they are walking past a concourse restroom and this might be the last opportunity before immigration. “I have to bid you goodbye, now, since I have to” — he points meaningfully to the sign of a highly stylized male on the wall — “and I really don’t want you to wait for me, especially here,” — he points again to the sign. She understands. Chang is overcome by emotions. A cursory, and useless glance to the left, to the right, and he unstraps his wig, and hands it to her, unceremoniously. “You’re lovely,” the lady tweets, “you’re lovely.” This could have meant the end of his mission, but it didn’t. Nobody else is paying attention.
Once in the restroom, he unmasks his face with a lot of wet tissue. The wig goes back into the pouch — no, it doesn’t, the fat lady has it now.
He was right. This had been the last restroom before immigration. He’s another oriental face in the queue. The other queue is moving faster, the gaunt gentleman has changed his live. “Bienvenudo à Madrid, Sigñor Yoon,” the immigration officer says with a nod. The likeness with his own passport picture must be striking.
CHAPTER 11
We’re in Fisher’s office and are facing the palisander paneled, display-strewn wall, where the Dow Jones graph on a screen to the left and the Fisher formula on a screen to right screen have joined forces, jumping off the cliff hand in hand. The graph of the Fisher Corporation equity on its separate screen has also been suicidal, but its present fate is unknown (the screen is off). They — that means Claude, since Fisher is never available on the phone — had a margin call this morning, on Fisher’s private account with Fuld Brothers, the first margin call in Fisher’s impressive career as a rich man, Fuld calling himself. Fisher, apparently on Glenn Beck’s advice, had bought too many tons of gold on the margin, and with the spot price down by unfathomable percentages he would have to sell the precious metal and take terrible losses, or chip in more cash as collateral. Lots of it. True to form, Fisher had not been willing to listen. Instead, there and then, he had silenced the Fisher stock screen with a hand wave. Then the accountant with the interminable name had called and asked more questions about the Unicorn Foundation, Fisher’s secret offshore vehicle. They would need answers from Fisher personally. Fisher had politely declined. Then the accountant had called again to inform them of their regret to have no alternative but to decide to sever their relationship with the Fisher Corporation, effective immediately. “Let the books uncook,” Fisher had replied. And now Vladimir is calling.
“An invitation to a fundraiser. 100 kay a plate. We said we would raise it to 200 kay, if only the man could make it. He refused to take the call.” This is not exactly the moment, Claude is thinking.
“An invitation to a fundraiser. 100 kay a plate. We said we would raise it to 200 kay, if only the man could make it. He refused to take the call.” This is not exactly the moment, Claude is thinking.
-“You are at your wit’s end,” he says, more speaking to himself. Baltimore doesn’t expect this, but Fisher, his telepathic forces still intact, understands exactly what is going on, and he is now showing his mettle. “Unicorn,” he says, “Unicorn. Tell Bush we’ll organize an official gala to replace the Republican elephant by a unicorn. And tell him we’re auctioning off a Rothko on the occasion to keep the glaciers alive. And we need him as the marquee auctioneer. No speeches. Tell him it’s Nancy’s idea. He can’t say ‘no’ to Nancy Reagan, especially if he feels like it.”
-“The twist of your unicorns, isn’t that taking this a bit too far,” Baltimore asks, who is also telepathic, or who can hear Fisher through Claude’s Iphone.
-“Well, it's practically a joke. He’s a frat boy, he understands. He knows about glaciers, and unicorns, he’ll ask Laura about Rothko. The couple may have grown apart recently, but now they reconnect, Laura explaining what a Rothko is. Nancy, glaciers, unicorns, a fund raiser thrown into the deal, it covers the entire rainbow, regardless how far he has drifted. It’ll work.”
-“The twist of your unicorns, isn’t that taking this a bit too far,” Baltimore asks, who is also telepathic, or who can hear Fisher through Claude’s Iphone.
-“Well, it's practically a joke. He’s a frat boy, he understands. He knows about glaciers, and unicorns, he’ll ask Laura about Rothko. The couple may have grown apart recently, but now they reconnect, Laura explaining what a Rothko is. Nancy, glaciers, unicorns, a fund raiser thrown into the deal, it covers the entire rainbow, regardless how far he has drifted. It’ll work.”
***
The wooden floor squeaks as Jim is pacing up and down across the main room of the cabin. Some old planks survived the haphazard renovation, they are darker (and noisier) than the new ones. A circle sketched on the ground in sticky red, a few inches across, marks the nail that ended Zack’s ambitions as to home-improvement and all that. How would professionals do this, Jim thinks, would they mark their defeats with lipstick? A bulbous noise booms through the bolted door. Yoo is shuffling around. ‘Who guards the guardians,’ Jim is trying to think up the wording of the original quote in Latin. He could ask Yoo, who would probably know — not a pleasant thought. Jim is chained to Yoo next door because Yoo is chained to an iron ball. They are together in this as a two man chain gang that would be funny otherwise, if only Yoo wouldn’t rise on the hour to take a leak. Yoo must hear him hearing the sprinkling noise of a feeble urine jet splashing down the pit. Conspiratorial discussions as to proper intra-cabin sanitation had ended in nothing, thwarted by the solid granite underneath the cabin and Pamela’s insightful remark that Yoo’s shit wouldn’t smell. Jim feels briefly elated by the thought that his own defecation takes place in the ancient outhouse of Nachtrieb heritage beyond the perimeter of smells and sounds 40 feet away from the cabin, but is brought back to reality by yet another one of Yoo’s performances. Yoo needs breakfast, Jim thinks, he must be completely empty by now. Jim gets hold of the ancient food tray and assembles a pack of milk, a plastic cup, and a piece of soggy bread, cruelly purchased at the worst and only bakery of Tuolumne City.
