Thursday, October 29, 2009

Chapter 12 Going Underground

(You are viewing a novel in real-time, by David A. Kearns who maintains copyright. For reader enjoyment only. Not for republication in any form. The postings to this blog are chapters of The Big Lie, the second book in a UFO series.)

(Author's additional note: Stay tuned, comment, your participation in any form is appreciated.)


Tim Stanton, set the old hard-line fax phone down. The phone sat inside a room completely insulated for interference or electronic surveillance of any sort. It was a true, sealed, Faraday chamber that would have done credit to a government agency; a few years ago that is.
He had just been speaking with management of the Highjump Products Store in Breaux Bridge Louisiana. They were nice people; after a little coaxing, they began to understand what Tim was saying without saying; began to get the gist of his lingo.
It all made him feel like a character in some Graham Greene novel: “Is the package away?”
“Wha… oh yes, the package. Yes, it’s away, heh!”
Russ was en route to Tampa.
Every Highjump Products outlet had a wing to the offices which were reserved for Tim Stanton, and a cadre of managers he would meet with to discuss important company business. This wing was off-limits to the store employees.
The meeting schedule would change constantly, thus, employees never knew when Tim and his group would arrive. The store employees, from the manager on down to the cashiers all thought, this was to “keep them on their toes.” But that wasn’t the real reason, only a decent cover for the real reason.
These managers, who all arrived wearing the familiar company vest and jackets with the logo and name tags, weren’t really company officers, though they introduced themselves as such. Or perhaps sometimes, they were introduced as regional managers. They were directors of an underground network of what was now being called The Human Resistance. They had all signed The Human Declaration of Independence and Acts of War document. Two of those signers were now dead. A third, had been captured, his status was unknown.
They arrived, held a lengthy meeting in the private wings of these stores which could last for as long as two days, but very seldom longer. These managers along with their president and CEO even slept on cots and bunk beds near the managerial bathrooms and kitcheonetes.
But Tim knew this brand of the growing underground, was as outdated as his sealed Faraday chamber; as useless as that old Fax machine was.
It had been useful at one point to dumb down his forms of communication; use an ancient dial-up connection on old 486 machines between stores, but spies and watchers learned this game.
Then it came down to wiring coded instructions to resistance members through Western Union with gobs of cash, but that system was also discovered.
In an age now, where conceivably every single human being had a desktop computer, a powerful one at that, inside his head and was in constant streaming communication with the internet, where would you be able to hide anymore? What method would work?
“Mr. Stanton!” came a voice over the intercom.
“Yes, Marcie,” he replied.
“You told me to interrupt you of any important world news,” she said.
“Sure, what’s happened?”
“You’ll want to turn on CNN,” she said, then disconnected.
Tim went over to his desktop and moved the old mouse and said “CNN”.
The image of Evan Katzenberg came to life. It was from an old interview. At the bottom of the screen there was a ticker reading “DIRECTOR EVAN KATZENBERG,WIFE SARAH, DEAD IN HOUSE FIRE.”
“…I think Hollywood should have evolved from the days of blacklisting writers, actors and directors, and yet here we are. There was a reason we stopped putting propaganda in the movies. We stopped making them the public relations arms of the armed services and corporations. Now you have intelligence agencies from here and abroad behind all this muscle, and intimidation. I mean, I’ve been about keeping the art-form pure.”
“Aren’t you concerned for your relationships within the industry?” the interviewer asked.
“ Yeah, and I hear what you’re asking even though you can’t specifically ask it. But I ask you, why do you say that? Because I happen to show the humanity of some of my characters who also happen to be Palestinian, or Lebanese or whatever? That doesn’t make me a bad Jew, that happens to make me a good one,” he said. “Take that issue out of it: whatever happened to the artist challenging any sort of dogma, any sort of move toward mental uniformity? What, we’re not supposed fight against that anymore, or what we’re saying is either follow in lock-step with the party line, or, you’re out? No better than McCarthyism.”
The image shifted to the burned-out scene; a charred hulk of a house in Malibu.
“Fire Rescue is indicating that the explosion may be the result of a faulty gas valve in the home. Katzenberg was 57 years old. He and his wife leave behind two young children who were staying with relatives at the time of the explosion.
“Jesus,” sighed Tim.
He picked up the phone again. It might not be as secure as he wanted it, but he had to step up the meeting time-table. They all needed to get here, as soon as humanly possible.

*
“Man, I just knew there was something wrong with the government,” Tibby LeBlanc said after hearing the whole story.
The sixty foot fishing trawler was somewhere southwest of Pensacola. The sun was directly upon them but, there was a solid breeze out of the southwest. They stood in the pilot house watching the gulls swirl around the upper works and radio gear. The gulls were waiting for a quick meal that wasn’t coming anytime soon, this being a transport mission disguised as a fishing trip.
“Oh yeah. See, our buddy Ryan used to talk about what the lie does, to everything and everybody,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“He said it works like an infectious disease whose main outcomes are insanity and evil. He told us it was a mathematical certainty, sort of like an equation. The bigger the lie, the worse the insanity and evil working itself out on the other side.”
“Sounds like a philosopher more than a computer engineer,” Tibby said.
“You and he were close?” Tibby asked.
“Not as close as I would have liked. He was best friends with Tim,” Russ said.
“The guy who runs Highjump,” he said.
“Yeah, well, it’s complicated but, Ryan actually helped Tim with the start-up funds for the company. The company works as a front for the underground that we are growing,” Russ said.
“Day-um,” Tibby said. “And this Ryan killed himself?”
“That’s the official version. Tim said an assassin took him out in 2011, but he knew it was coming, and that he couldn’t escape it, so he hatched his plans, to get the movement started,” he said.
“Man you hear about this sort of thing, but deep down you find it hard to imagine it actually happening,” Tibby said.
“There are people working for the government agencies and contractors who are more evil than you can possibly imagine, Tibby. I’ve had some direct experience with this in Central America,” Russ said.
“What do you suppose they want from us, Russ?”“Them?” Russ asked.
“Yeah, them,” Tibby said, with his eyes rolling upward nervously.
“Nothing good, Tibby. That much we know for sure. Nothing good,” Russ said.

*
“No sir, he’s not telling us a damned thing and at this rate, we’ll lose him,” came the voice of Colonel Epps. He was on his secure line again, speaking to someone.
“No sir, and I am not a doctor. The extent of his injuries are getting to a point that…”
There was a pause.
Chuck was amazed to know he was still alive, still marking time in this situation. The beatings, stabbings, slicing and chemical burns had stopped, for the time being anyway.
Who could he be talking to now? Not Lt. Colonel Kurt Warner, thought Chuck.
Whoever it was, Epps was afraid of him. That meant someone higher than both Epps and Warner on the pecking order. He had to get that name, and add it to his list. Chuck struggled to bring his mind into a state of full consciousness. He was in the fight of his life and he knew it.
It was a fight he could not physically win, but he might psychically win it, unless they had more tricks up their sleeves.
Whoever the cold bastard was down the end of the phone, he was the sort who would have more ammunition.
“I’ll await your arrival, sir.”
“Charles I am truly impressed,” Epps said hanging up the phone. “You may have just cost me my career…”
“I plan on …costing you….your life, colonel Jackass,” Chuck managed to respond in breathless gasps.
Epps snickered.
Chuck managed to look around the room with his remaining good eye.
“Where did your scumbags…go?” he asked.
Epps folded his arms.
“I read in your file you had been a boxer, before you took up surfing,” Epps said.
Chuck spat a gob of blood and teeth out of his mouth. He ignored the colonel.
“Scumbags couldn’t take it huh? Had to get new scumbags, had to call in the second string, see …if they could do a …better job,” Chuck sighed, closing his eyes.
His head lolled off to the side again.
“Get some rest, Charles. You’re going to need it,” Epps said.

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