“Is he in?” the Captain asked flatly.
“He’s busy,” the little snit replied.
“It’s a communiqué.”
With an almost disgusted sigh, the aide laboriously lifted the phone and buzzed into the inner office. “Captain Falad, with a telex.”
As he entered the room, Falad was surprised to see 10 high commanders in conference around a map of the United States. There were pins inserted at various places, one in a place called Ohio. He stood waiting to be recognized as the men discussed something about the effect on their plan.
“So, are you saying that the Americans won’t look this way?” General Nandeserra asked in an accusatory tone meant to belittle any opinion that didn’t originate within his brain.
“I am saying, General, that they have established no links or any connection to us or Samovar.” A slight-of-build, mustached Colonel, in an ill-fitting uniform, explained.
Falad surmised that he must be in the intelligence service, since intelligence officers were not warriors, just brains. The army could make a uniform fit the body of a man of action, but could not make a dress shirt for a brain. Brains, Falad thought, required a private tailor. He noticed the copy of an intelligence report; it was in Arabic but the words “Canton Ohio,” which had no Arabic translation, remained in English. He then heard Nandeserra mutter, “Yes.”
Falad stepped forward, put his feet together, as is appropriate when addressing an officer of flag rank, and handed the papers to him. The General put on his half-height reading glasses and gave the paper a quick scan, “That will be all, Captain.” He dismissed Falad without looking up from the Teletype impacted paper.
As the Captain headed for the door he heard the General announce, “It appears the Americans do not have any idea that they are under attack, at least from the disposition of their military assets in the world. There has been…” the door shut behind him, cutting off the General’s words.
Falad walked across more than 1,000 meters of unforgiving Turkish marble back to his desk in the basement. Falad was stationed in the “Eyes and Ears,” the nickname he and his unit called the modern listening post that was finally approved for installation. It was really nothing more than a few satellite dishes with K-band receivers hooked up to a distribution system that allowed for many television sets along with many video tape recorders to monitor worldwide satellite broadcasts. It was crammed into a small space amidst the clanking metal Teletype machines that still carried encrypted communications to various levels of the government and military.
Ever since the Gulf War of the last century, nation states of the world realized that much intelligence was flying around the globe in the form of satellite news networks like CNN. Critical information regarding operations, troop movements, and the future deployment of forces were the common fodder of American journalism. Falad estimated that America’s lust for news had saved nations around the world billions in intelligence gathering costs. Having lived for a short time in the U.S., Falad was well aware of the open nature indicative of that society as well as its puppet governments throughout Europe. That’s how he got this assignment. To his chagrin, he was pulled from an active field artillery unit on the western border only to shuttle papers and culturally interpret the programming they were receiving.
America had made a sport of political and governmental news coverage. They just couldn’t help themselves from broadcasting these matches to the rest of the world. Falad had been brought in to separate the dung from the fertile soil. There was much dung on these programs. People, who had no idea of what was truly going on in government or military affairs, were given airtime and the privilege of discussing pressing matters of the day with anchors and hosts of talk shows. For the most part, those moderators’ only apparent reason to exist was to fill up the spaces between Weight Watchers advertisements and recorded music offers. This massive amount of uninformed guessing and supposition was confusing to standard, direct translators. It became clear that “who was talking?” and “what true knowledge did they have?” were more cultural questions than ones of fact. Many horse’s asses were allowed to pontificate on matters of the day, essentially polluting the well of information which was originally so pure when Peter Arnett broadcast direct from Baghdad. One could plainly see, in night vision green and white, the air war happening over his shoulder. Today 90 percent was garbage and people speaking merely to hear themselves talk. Falad’s job was to monitor, decipher, and rate the relative importance and political power of the various heads that spoke so that the “intelligence” they spewed could be either dismissed or considered.
Getting the hang of the White House could certainly be a daunting task; her level of security pass clearance had its limitations unless a senior person accompanied her. The first thing she learned was that Hiccock had “All Access.” He seemed to have a direct line right to the president, a truly rare circumstance between a science advisor and POTUS, which is what she learned the insiders called the President Of The United States. It was a carry over from the abbreviation used on the old White House interoffice phone system.
She thought she was heading down to the White House mess when she found herself in the little room, off the pressroom, filled with reporters filing their stories. The United Press International correspondent immediately zeroed in on the blonde as she entered the room, appearing somewhat bewildered.
“Can I help you?” Dave Higgins asked.
“I can’t believe I wound up back here,” Carly admitted out loud.
“New here, aren’t you?” he asked seeing the special badge hanging from her neck. It was a “short term” issue, usually for reporters whose newspapers didn’t have a permanent reporter assigned to the press corp.
“Yes, my second day.” She extended her hand. “Carly Simmone from Scientific American.”
“Dave Higgins, UPI. Want a cup of coffee?”
“Actually, I was heading to the mess for an interview.”
“Ah… that’s the next door over, then make a left.”
“Thanks.” she turned to leave.
“Who are you interviewing?”
“William Hiccock.”
“Right, Scientific American!” he made a gesture with his finger like a gun and shot her a wink. She reciprocated, shot him back a pressed grin, and left.
It took all of five minutes. Wally Smith, the producer of MSNBC, found his way into Naomi Spence’s office.
“What can I do for you, Wally?”
“Naomi, we all play by the rules here. You say hands off Hiccock and we back off.”
“Thank you for reminding me of my own rules”
“…Well today this girl shows up with a special, and Dave Higgins tells me she’s having lunch with Hiccock, doing an exclusive egghead piece for American Science magazine. What gives?”
“First off, it’s Scientific American. Secondly, she is not a girl, she is a woman, a reporter, and, for your information, the story was set way before anything blew up.”
“Listen, Naomi, I represent over four million viewers. Throw in NBC and CNBC and we got 30 million adults 25 — 54 watching. I don’t think I like the idea of being scooped by some monthly journal of a science rag, when we are covering hard news here.”
“Yesterday you did a seven-minute package on the president’s daughter Marie’s poodle and how she got better doggy health care being the daughter of the president. Real hard there, Wally”