“Yes, sir.”
“Now, if you'd had any brains, or anyone in your department knew shit about PR, we wouldn't have had any problem, because we could have said the snipers weren't ours, and then we could have investigated and said that Beech staged the whole thing, and he'd look like an asshole and we could track him down at our leisure and blow him and his buddies to hell with an explosion we'd put down as them setting off a bomb they were building. But you didn't do that. You didn't deny anything. You didn't tell the cops to keep their mouths shut, and they'd been told not to interfere with the feds on the rooftops.”
“That hasn't been widely reported, sir. We could still deny it, say that was all rumors…”
The chief of staff shook his head. “No, we couldn't, asshole. You don't understand how PR works, do you? It's all timing. I told you, all timing. If we deny it now, everyone will scream cover-up, and we'll have another goddamn scandal dragging on for years even if Casper Beech walks in here in ten minutes and blows his own brains out. We should have had a spokesman there covering our ass on the scene -once the story's out on CNN and Fox and all over the net it's too late.”
Smith wanted to protest, but the other man was right-he didn't know anything about PR. That wasn't part of his job description. Covert was covert; they never admitted or denied anything.
“You beginning to see the situation, Smith?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, what we want is to make sure that this Beech doesn't start a revolution. We want to dump the blame for the riot. Right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the direct approach hasn't worked with Beech-and you can be proud of that, if you want, because that's exactly what you programmed him for, asshole. He's supposed to be able to handle any kind of direct attack, isn't he?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So why the hell did you use them? Chrissake, man…”
Smith swallowed uneasily.
The chief of staff took a moment to collect himself. “So we need to find another approach,” he continued eventually.
“Like what?”
The chief of staff smiled. “Why, it's obvious. You heard his speech, saw the vids?”
“Yes, sir.”
“He says he's not a revolutionary,” the tall man pointed out. “He says he wants peaceful political reform.”
“That's just propaganda, sir,” Smith said. “It's in the Spartacus File. It's all just talk, for public consumption. He's still programmed for violent revolution.”
“Of course,” the other agreed, nodding. “But what if we take it literally? What if we invite him to Washington for talks?”
“What?”
“What if we apologize, say it was all a misunderstanding, and invite him down here to meet the president?”
“Sir, he'd assassinate the president!”
“Okay, then, to meet somebody, some geek from State maybe. It doesn't matter who he talks to. The point is, we get him out of the underground, out where we can see him, keep an eye on him.”
Smith blinked. “And then we can get him with his defenses down and kill him?”
“Oh, God,” the chief of staff said, leaning back and staring at the ceiling in disgust. Then he leaned forward again and hammered the desk with his fist. “ No, asshole! We don't kill him. We co-opt him. How the hell is he going to recruit an army if he's here talking to the Under-Secretary for Urban Affairs? Hell, we could even appoint him Under-Secretary for Urban Affairs if we have to! We make him think we're taking his reform talk seriously, and tie him up in red tape until everyone just forgets him, until he's just one more former radical giving speeches no one listens to!”
“But… he won't do it. He's compelled.”
“That's fine, too. Then we can point and say, ‘Look, we tried,’ and we can send the SWAT teams after him and blow him away right out in public and people will cheer for us instead of starting riots! And we'll take our time about it and do it right, with bombs or serious firepower, no more half-baked crap with snipers using armor-piercing shells… Jesus, Smith, where'd you come up with that, anyway?”
“It seemed… we wanted to be ready for everything, and we thought he might wear a vest…”
“Right.” He grimaced in disgust. “You thought.”
For a moment the two men were silent; then Smith asked, “So you'll issue a pardon for him, then? And after that Covert's out of it?”
The chief of staff shook his head. “Not exactly,” he said. “We need to dump the blame for the riot. We need a scapegoat if we're going to pull this off and have the public on our side when we ask Beech to surface.”
Smith felt a sudden cold dread.
The chief of staff smiled.
“You got it, Smith. Seems there's a small covert unit gone rogue, went after this Beech character without authorization, but of course we've caught them now. We'll have a nice show trial, you and maybe three or four others will be convicted and given twenty years, and then we'll quietly lose you on the way to prison, and next thing you know you'll be in the Witness Protection Program somewhere.”
“But… my work… my career…”
“So you'll have a two-year vacation. It'll be about that long before this blows over. A sabbatical, Smith-you can do some studying, brush up on your practical politics. Maybe when you come back you'll have a better handle on the way the real world works.”
Smith shuddered.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Cas! C'mere, quick!” Mirim shouted.
Casper was out of his seat at the kitchen table before he even realized he'd heard Mirim's voice-the Spartacus File, as he'd discovered right from the first, had its own reflexes, faster than his own natural ones.
“'Scuse me,” he said to Cecelia and Ed, as he hurried into the living room.
Mirim was watching Headline News; a government spokesman was on the screen, half a dozen microphones shoved into his face.
“…responsible for this regrettable incident are under arrest,” the spokesman was saying.
“What's happening?” Casper asked, as he settled onto the couch.
“I repeat,” the spokesman said, “their actions were completely unauthorized, and a thorough investigation is under way.”
“The sniper at the rally,” Mirim said. “They're saying he was part of a rogue cell within the national security structure, acting illegally.”
Casper threw her a quick glance, then locked his attention on the screen.
“Sir!” a reporter called, “does this mean that Casper Beech, the speaker at that rally, is in fact not a terrorist?”
“We can't say that definitely at this time,” the spokesman replied, “but it appears that in fact, there is no evidence that Mr. Beech had broken any laws at the time these renegades issued their order for his apprehension. Mr. Beech has not been indicted, and the government has dropped all charges against him. We do have some questions we'd like to ask him in connection with prosecuting those responsible for this outrage, and the City of New York apparently has some problems with his failure to obtain a permit for his rally…” He paused, grinning, for the reporters to laugh appreciatively. “…but if he was sincere in saying that his organization, People For Change, is dedicated to peaceful political reform, we trust he'll come forward and share his insights with us. Together, I'm sure we can prevent any further abuses of this sort.”
Cecelia had followed Casper from the kitchen, without rushing; now she stood in the doorway, listening to the speech.
“Pretty good,” she said, leaning against the doorframe. “Notice how he left everything open. If they decide you're trouble, Cas, they can still hit you with failure to get that permit, and wrongful death suits by the relatives of the four feds in Philly, and a lot of other shit.”