Terminal Compromise

Since they had been a.s.signed to a.s.sist the FBI, the NSA had been hunting down the locations of the potential conspirators with the a.s.sistance of the seven Baby Bells and Bell Laboratories in Princeton, New Jersey. The gargantuan task was delicately bal- ancing a fine line between chaos and stagnancy; legality and amorality.

As they spoke, Jacobs heard a tone emit from his computer and he noticed that Office-2 had a Priority Visitor.

"Gentlemen," Marvin Jacobs said as he stood. "It seems that my presence is required for a small matter. Would you mind enter- taining yourselves for a few minutes?" His solicitous nature and political clout demanded that his visitors agree without hesita- tion.

He walked over to a door by the floor to ceiling bookshelf and let himself in, through the gracious ante-room by the commode and into his heavy wood and leather office. He immediately saw the reason for the urgency.

"Miles, Miles Foster, my boy! How are you?" Marvin Jacobs walked straight to Miles, vigorously shook his hand and gave him a big friendly bear hug.

Miles smiled from ear to ear. "It's been cold out there. Glad to be home." He looked around the room and nodded appreciative- ly. "You've been decorating again."

"Twice. You haven't been in this office for, what is it, five years?" Jacobs held Miles by the shoulders. "My G.o.d it's good to see you. You don't look any the worse for wear."

"I had a great boss, treated me real nice," Miles said.

"Come here, sit down," Marvin said ushering Miles over to a thickly padded couch. "If you don't already know it, this coun- try owes you a debt of thanks."

"I know," Miles said, even though he had been paid over three million dollars by h.o.m.osoto.

"A drink, son?" At fifty-five, the red faced paunch bellied Jacobs looked old enough to be Miles' father, even though they were only fifteen years apart.

"Glenfiddich on the rocks." Miles felt comfortable. Totally comfortable and in control of the situation.

"Done." DIRNSA Jacobs pressed a b.u.t.ton which caused a hidden bar to be exposed from a mirror paneled wall. The James Bondish tricks amused Miles. "Excuse me," he said to Miles. "Let me get rid of my other appointments." Jacobs handed Miles the drink and leaned over his desk speaking into telephone. "Uh, Miss Gree- ley, cancel my dates for the rest of the day, would you please?"

"Of course, sir." The thin female voice came across the speaker phone clearly.

"And my regrets to the gentlemen in One."

"Yessir." The intercom audibly clicked off.

"So," Marvin asked, "how does it feel to be both the goat and the hero?"

"Hey, I fixed it, just like we planned, didn't I?" Miles said arrogantly, but his deep dimples said he was joking. "I remember everything you taught me," he bragged. "Lesson One: If you really want to fix something, first you gotta f.u.c.k it up so bad everyone takes notice. Well, how'd I do?" Miles still grinned, his dimples radiating a star pattern across his cheeks. Jacobs approved whole heartedly.

"You were a natural. From day one."

"h.o.m.osoto thought that f.u.c.k-it to fix-it was entirely too weird at first, so I quit calling it that." Miles fondly remembered those early conversations. "As you said, it takes a disaster to motivate Americans, and we gave them one."

"I'm glad you see it that way," Marvin said obligingly. "It occurred to me that you might have gotten soft on me."

"Not a chance." Miles countered. "How many men get to lead armies, first of all. And I may be the first, ever, to lead an invasion of my own country with my government's approval. This was a sanctioned global video game. I should thank you for the opportunity."

"That's a h.e.l.l of a way to look at

"It doesn't make a d.a.m.n bit of difference who the President is.

The Government stays the same regardless of who's elected every 4 years." Marvin continued as Miles listened reverently.

"The American public thinks that politicians run the country; they think that they vote for the people who make the policies, who set the tone of the government, but they are so wrong. So wrong." Marvin shook his head side to side. "And it's probably just as well that they never find out for sure." He held Miles'

attention. Marv walked around the room drink in hand, gesturing with his hands and arms.

"The hundreds of thousands of Government employees, the ones that are here year after year after year, we are the ones who make policy. It's the mid-grade manager, the staff writer, the polit- ical a.n.a.lysts who create the images, the pictures that the White House and Capital Hill see.

"This town, the United States is run by lifers; people who have dedicated their lives to the American way of life. The military controls more than any American wants to know. State Department, Justice, HUD; each is its own monolithic bureaucracy that does not change direction overnight because of some election in b.u.m- f.u.c.k, Iowa. It takes four years to find your way through the corridors, and by then, odds are you'll be packing back to Maine, or Georgia or California or wherever you came from." Marvin Jacob's vitriolic oration was grinding on Miles, but he had to listen to his boss.

"So when this country gets into trouble, someone has to do some- thing about it. G.o.d knows the politicians won't. This country was in real trouble and someone had to fix it. In this case it was me. It's been a decade since the first warnings about how vulnerable our computers, our economy, s.h.i.+t, our National Securi- ty were. The reports came out, and Congress decided to ignore them. Sure, they built up the greatest armaments in the history of civilization, sold the future for a few trillion, but they ne- glected to protect their investment." Jacobs angrily poured himself another drink.

"I couldn't let that happen, so I decided that I needed to expose the weaknesses in our systems before somebody else did." Marvin spoke proudly. "And what better way than to f.u.c.k it up beyond all recognition. FUBAR. At least this way we were in charge, and we were able to pick the damage. Thanks to you. Lessons tend to be painful, and I guess we're paying for some of our past sins." He drank thirstily.

"Did those sins mean that I would have to be arrested by the FBI?

I couldn't say a thing; not the truth. They'd never have be- lieved me." Miles shuddered at the thought. "For a moment, I thought you might leave me to rot in jail."

"Hey," Marvin said happily. "Didn't our people get you out, just like I promised? Less than an hour." He sounded proud of his efforts. "Besides, most of them were bulls.h.i.+t charges. Not worth the effort to prosecute."

"I never underestimate the power of the acronym," Miles said about the NSA, CIA and a.s.sorted lettered agencies. "There was a lot of not so quiet whispering when it was released that the charges were dropped by the Federal Prosecutor. Think that was smart, so soon? Maybe we should have waited a couple of months."

Jacobs looked up sharply at Miles' criticism of his actions but spoke with understanding. "We needed to get the cameras off of you and onto the real problem; it was the right thing to do.

Your part is over. You started the war. Now it's up to me to stop it. It could not have gone any smoother. Yes," he re- flected. "It's time for us to take over. You have performed magnificently. We couldn't ask for any more."

Miles sipped at his drink accepting the reasoning and asked, "I've wondered about a few things, since the beginning."

"Now's as good a time as any," Marv said edging himself behind his desk. "I'd imagine you have a lot of holes to fill in."

"How did you get h.o.m.osoto to cooperate? He seemed to fall right into place."

"It was almost too easy," Jacobs commented casually. "We had a number of candidates. You'd be surprised how many people with money and power hold grudges against Uncle Sam," he snickered.

"It's hard to believe, but true."

"Meaning, if it wasn't him, it would have been someone else?"

"Exactly. There's no shortage of help in the revenge business.

There are still many hibakusha, survivors of Hiros.h.i.+ma and Naga- saki, who still want revenge on us for ending the war and saving so may lives. Ironic, isn't it? That someone like h.o.m.osoto is twisted enough to help us, just to fuel his own hatred," Marvin Jacobs asked rhetorically.

"But he didn't know he was helping, did he?" Miles asked.

"Of course not. Then he would have been running the show, and this was my production. No, it worked out just fine."

Jacobs paused for more liquor and continued. "Then we have a few European industrialists, ex-n.a.z.is who are available...the KGB, GRU, Colombian cartel members. The list of a.s.sets is long.

Where's there's money, there's help, and most of them prefer the Yankee dollar to any other form of payment. They forget that by hurting us they also hurt the world's largest economy, as well as everybody else's and then the fiscal dominoes start falling uncontrollably."

"You mean you bought him?" Miles asked.

"Oh, no! You can't buy a billionaire, but you can influence his actions, if he thinks that it's his idea. It just so happens that he was the first one to bite. Health problems and all."

"What problems?"

"In all likelihood it's from the radiation, the Bomb; his doctors gave him a couple of years to live. Inoperable form of leukemia."

"I didn't know..."