Chapter 10:
Who is John Gall?
As soon as we returned to Vegas from the movie hoopla in L.A., I phoned Jane, who had been trying to raise campaign funds. "Did we have any luck this week, Jane?"
Jane said, "I could only scrape up a few hundred, but Marcus raised 5,000 bucks!" Out of that amount, Marcus, working strictly on commission, had earned $1,000.
"More lonely Hollywood wives, I suppose."
On July 1st, my mystery employer finally contacted me, calling me at home: "Denny?”
I didn't recognize the voice. "Who's this? Hello?”
After a pregnant pause while keys clicked in the background, he said, “Hi, this is John from the Department of Agriculture. Could you meet me at noon at the Las Vegas Transit Center? It's right next to the Federal Building."
"Wait - how do you even know who I am?" He then hung up in my ear. I shook my head at the receiver and muttered to myself: “Christ, what an idiot.” I didn't believe that DISC had stopped monitoring my phone calls just because I no longer worked there. Worse yet, my old nemesis, Mr Webb, suspected me of somehow having interfered with one of his private intelligence operations - probably at The Life Club. If Webb or his superior - Mr Lock - ever discovered that I was an army trained psychic, their paranoia would go through the roof.
After parking my car three blocks down the street and walking to the busy Transit Center, I slouched on an empty bench, my arms crossed, as if waiting for one of the many city buses which converged here. When nobody was close to me, a shifty-eyed guy in a loud floral shirt approached me. He looked like a 40-year old white tourist searching for a hooker. I thought, Well, at least he's well camouflaged. "Denny?"
"Yeah, but don’t talk so loud,” I softly said.
He cleared his throat and then hissed, “Hello, my name is John Gall. I work for the USDA.”
Just then, two young black men strolled past us and glared rather menacingly, so I loudly told the alleged Mr Gall, "The Route 23 gets here in about 20 minutes. Come on, let’s go get a drink or something.” After we walked a few hundred feet, I whispered, “My ex-employer probably has parabolic microphones pointing right at us. Those guys don’t fuck around. Incidentally, it wasn’t such a hot idea to call me at home.”
After walking only a block, we entered a locked back door of the Federal Building and then rode a freight elevator, where Gall said, "All right, Denny, now we can speak freely. But first, I’ll have to run your fingerprints through our database when we get to my office. We got your voice-print verified over the phone but we can't be too careful."
"Uh-uh - no way I’m giving you my fingerprints until you show me some i.d., Mr Gall, or whoever you are. And it had better be impressive.” Once we were inside his office, Gall showed me his National Security Council identity card, which I closely scrutinized. He supposedly worked as an investigator on the NSC staff. He then took my fingerprints and scanned them through the OVERLORD database. Upon getting verification of my prints a few seconds later, Gall said, “Well, it’s official. You are Denton Tiberius Smith, born Seattle, Washington April 23, 1959.”
“So, Mr Gall, you’re NSC. I thought I was working for the DIA."
"Call me John. Actually, Denny, you're an independent contractor, with no official connection to the U.S. government." Relief swept over me as I realized that as a mere contract employee, my involvement with political fund raising was legal - employees of the executive branch of the U.S. government are forbidden to do that. Gall motioned for me to sit down. "Officially, your cover job is as a consultant to the USDA’s Experimental Hybrids Section. You won't have to explain your duties if anybody asks - it's strictly top secret work.”
"Experimental Hybrids Section, eh. What’s that - a breeding farm for extra-terrestrials?"
He slyly joked, "I can neither confirm nor deny that. Anyway, how'd you like to work for the NSC?"
Still playing coy, I asked, "But what could I do for them? I’m just a paper pusher, and a low-level one at that."
"They are well aware of what you can do, Denny. Your specials skills have proven quite useful to the president.” As president, Benson "Smokey" Hedges was Chairman of the National Security Council.
“Okay, so what kind of work would I be doing? Or is it too super-duper secret to tell me anything before I sign on?”
“It's more-or-less an open secret that Saddam Hussein has nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons hidden in Iraq. Since Saddam retreated from Kuwait so quickly after the US attack started, it forced the UN to call an end to hostilities before we had a chance to destroy many of Saddam's factories of Weapons of Mass Destruction. The president has ordered us to find these weapons, and he would like you to help.”
Skeptically I rolled my eyes, which rather annoyed him. “That again?" I asked. "During the war, we didn’t find a damned thing resembling nuclear materials.”
“That’s true, but we already know he's used nerve gas on his own citizens - the Kurds, so we're not taking any chances. Are you still interested?”
“What happens to me if I'm not?"
"Well, DISC has expressed an interest in buying back your contract. Other than that, you're on your own."
I didn't like the sound of that - '...you're on your own'. "Really," I said with a touch of gloom. Not anxious to return to DISC (nor eager to give up the generous federal paychecks), I said, "Sure, I’ll work for the NSC - if they are crazy enough to have me.”
Gall shook my hand and said, "Welcome aboard, then." I signed several Never-To-Disclose forms, and then Gall showed me a futuristic-looking wireless telephone, much smaller than big clunky cell phones then in use, smaller than a pack of cigarettes. "This is for you - it cost a lot of money so take good care of it. It's a scrambler/cell phone that can only communicate with my identical phone, on an encrypted Ultra High Frequency channel.” At that time, cell phones available to the general public used the lower-frequency VHF channels. “None of the buttons do anything except the Call and Disconnect buttons. When you want to call me, press the call button, and then we’ll exchange code names when I answer. We'll give you remote viewing assignments from time to time, and you may have to travel out of the country."
"Y'know, Mr Gall - John - I've had some experience in intelligence, but I'm not trained for this cloak-and-dagger shit, so don’t expect me to parachute into North Korea or anything like that." Suddenly I felt the familiar ear-burning sensation. Idly I looked out the window.
"Just stick with what you’ve been doing, Denny. Don't worry about - “
“Shut-up,” I growled under my breath.
“Excuse me? What the hell did you just - “
“Just take a look out the window.” I motioned my head toward the small, black, nearly silent helicopter that was loitering about 200 feet beyond and one floor below Gall’s 15th-floor window, apparently searching for my whereabouts so they could monitor our conversation. I noticed a thin cable hanging from the bottom of it - with microphones attached, no doubt. And sensitive enough to pick up human voices vibrating off window glass, from what I had heard. This sleek, half-pint chopper lacked an FAA registration number, so it wasn’t just my overheated, melodramatic imagination this time. When it ascended to eye level, I scribbled a note and passed it to Gall: They don’t fuck around.
* * *
Angie and Jane for weeks had been planning a Williamson fundraiser at Jane's house on the Fourth of July. For $250 cash, contributors could eat and drink themselves sick. A fireworks display in the backyard was to precede the big Las Vegas fireworks show, and Tim was going to raffle-off more club memberships. We cultivated the "swing" vote, long a neglected segment of the Body Politic.
Interest in attending our fund raising barbecue increased after a columnist that week wrote in USA Yesterday:
Congressman Cliff Williamson, strongly rumored to be a candidate for president in '92, may have the best financial backing of any of the other Democratic candidate. His best friend is none other than Dubb Dawson, one of the richest people in Georgia, second only to cable-TV titan Ted Turner. Dawson became a billionaire after building a huge pork and poultry processing empire. Dawson heavily supports Political Action Committees that for years have contributed regularly to Williamson’s campaigns, such as Southern Democrats For Campaign Reform, Georgia Educators For High-Tech Education, and the Georgia Pork and Poultry Packers Association.
On Independence Day 1991, the temperature was an intolerable 108 degrees. Even so, the barbeque drew well over 100 contributors and a dozen freeloading politicians. Tim's huge swimming pool was full of half-drunken patriots. Next to the pool, hickory smoke belched from four barbeque grills.
Tina was a popular attraction because of the current media hype. Her tiger-striped swimsuit was popular too. She smiled brilliantly, signed a few autographs and posed for photos with State Senators.
I recognized fat Cowboy Clyde Harness, a 60-year old white man who owned the largest construction company in Nevada. Knowing how much political influence Cowboy Clyde had, I introduced myself to him as the treasurer of the committee. He drawled, "You guys're doin' okay for such a small-time operation. So far, you've avoided gittin' in the way of the local big wigs. They don't cotton to outsiders operatin' in their terr-tory." He tilted back his 10-gallon hat. "But I kinda taken a like'n to Angie."
"Mr Harness - may I call you Cowboy? - We haven't focused on soliciting the usual local contributors. Did you know we've raised over 50 grand for the Democratic National Committee?"
"That's peanuts, son. Nice little party you got goin' on, though.” Sandra came inside from the pool area. She was wearing a hot-pink thong bikini. “Lordy, who's she?"
"Oh, that's Sandra. Sandra, I’d like you to meet Mr Harness."
"Well hello, little lady."
"You're Cowboy Clyde, aren't you? I see you on the news all the time!"
"They ain’t nailed me yet! Har-har!"
I maneuvered through the crowd and corralled Angie. "Angie, I just talked to Cowboy Clyde. He hinted that we should contribute money to the local politicians - like, now."
"Well, we could give $1,000 to Congressman Mazzini and 500 each to the local Democrats in the state legislature."
"That should shut 'em up for a minute - and throw in a few hundred each for the mayor and county commissioner. So, are you going back to L.A. tonight?"
"Yes, but just for a few days. After Francine gets killed off, they won't need me on the set anymore."
Then I pointed across the room to a tall, blonde man and a well-preserved redhead. “Hey, check out Marcus. He's converted another rich divorcee to our cause - and maybe a few of her friends." I talked to Steve Cromwell at the side of the pool. "Steve, I heard a rumor that Jasper Periwinkle is gonna run for president - as an Independent."
"He'll spend 100 million and get four percent of the vote. Heh-heh - but it would throw a monkey wrench in the election. He's conservative, so he could hurt Hedges chances in the Midwest and in the nuttier parts of California. Williamson and Burt Gort probably jumped for joy when Periwinkle declared his candidacy." Tennessee senator Gort, waiting in the wings like Williamson, was considered to be the Democratic front runner at this early date. And R. Jasper Periwinkle was the billionaire owner of the privately held Periwinkle Tool Company, which had a worldwide monopoly on certain types of oil well drill bits and molybdenum tunnel boring heads, as well as having been a major contractor on the construction of the secret government subway on which I commuted to work. PTC was headquartered 10 miles outside of Vegas, near Nellis Air Force Base. Periwinkle, age 70, became a national hero in 1979 when he flew a helicopter through a cyclone in order to save 12 PTC employees who were clinging to life on a damaged oil rig. On his radio network, Periwinkle had a weekly show on which he constantly blasted Washington lobbyists, the Liberal Media, Free Trade, and Hollywood Perversion.
On Sunday morning, two days after the fundraiser, I got up early in order to catch R. Jasper Periwinkles's weekly radio show, which pandered to the nation’s wacko element. His twangy, reedy voice spewed forth: "...Every new president has to deal with the fact that a secret government, consisting of career military men, life-long intelligence officers, and certain military contractors, is the continuous power structure which will obstruct a president's every effort to reform government, to return the country to the hard-working people who are the real strength of America...
"President Eisenhower warned us about the Military-Industrial Complex over 40 years ago. Top it off with special interest money, and you have a corrupted government. The only way to combat the take-over of America is to be free of these special interests. Therefore, it takes a person of independent means who can say no to the giant corporate lobbies that are funneling money to their Washington puppet-politicians.
"This take-over of America by corporate interests began under Franklin D. Roosevelt, and under Truman the process accelerated when the people who controlled nuclear weapons discovered the raw political power within their grasp. With billions of dollars of your tax money to toss around, it was easy for these corporations to corrupt the political process.
"It was the opinion of the secret government of the 1950s that since they had created the very technology that had won World War Two, thus saving the western world from slavery, a grateful America would follow blindly down the road of runaway budget deficits, thus bankrupting their grand-children, depleting natural resources, and polluting the earth...
"I am announcing, on this weekend of America's two-hundred and fifteenth birthday, my candidacy for President of the United States. My campaign will be financed entirely with my own money, which will give me a free hand in obeying the will of the people. If I am elected, campaign finance reform will be first on my agenda. Only then can we all tackle the huge task of returning power to the people, including people of color.
"If you are unhappy with the choices offered by the Democrats and Republicans, I encourage you to join my American Reform Party, a truly grass-roots movement of dedicated volunteers and concerned American voters. I ask not for money, but for your time and effort. Let's rebuild the American System, folks. A wonderful life awaits us in the new millennium, if we put our house in order and remove the alien influences from our way of life..."
The next day, there was an amusing editorial cartoon in a Vegas newspaper. It showed a terrified R. Jasper Periwinkle fleeing from a flying saucer, on which was printed "alien influences." Certain people in the federal government may have developed heart trouble after seeing the cartoon.
While eating lunch that day, I scanned Angie’s ubiquitous National Rag. On page two:
Alien Hooker Mystery Death
Samantha Thomas, former Rag correspondent, died in a one-car accident
last week on a California State Highway. In a series of articles that
were published in the Rag last year, Thomas claimed that blonde-haired
aliens were operating brothels across the United States and in other Cau-
casian areas of the world. She also claimed that the purpose of the bro-
thels was to manipulate the DNA of the brothels' customers. In the early
eighties, Thomas was married to Lazarus Roberts, who in 1989 gained
notoriety when he claimed he saw alien spacecraft which were being stored in aircraft hangers at Nevada's top-secret Area 51. They divorced in 1985.
Lazarus Roberts recently revealed that in 1982, he and Ms Thomas
operated a legal brothel in Nye County, Nevada. The autopsy and
toxicology reports on Thomas' body were not available at press time.
On the inside back cover the tabloid was the weekly column by the "renowned psychic" Astrolo. I only bothered to read it because it had something to do with Ayn Rand, one of my favorite authors.
A big wet lip-lock for my Trusted Correspondent, who sent me a tape of an Ayn Rand séance recorded by the United Friends of Objectivism, the fave dead author's fan-club/discussion group. I transcribe said séance for my Breathless Readership:
Question: Miss Rand, what do you think of the impending break-up of the Soviet Union?
Answer: If you had ever read any of my books, you wouldn't need to ask such a silly question. Of course I'm happy about it! As I've said many times, capitalism is the only system that allows humans to live as humans.
Question: Now that the Soviet threat is gone, what threats will America face in the future?
Answer: Undoubtedly, socialistic-altruistic beings from other worlds. I've met such beings on this plane of existence, and many of their minions have infiltrated industry and government - that's what my old friend James Forrestal told me, way back in 1947 when he was Secretary of Defense.
Question: How do you respond to the vast majority of philosophy professors who say that you’re not a real philosopher?
Answer: When I was alive, those Ivory Tower dwellers dared not debate me on the same stage, since I would have easily shredded their morally and intellectually bankrupt arguments. They didn’t want to debate - they wanted to END debate! When it came right down to it, they believed in the absolute power of the state to control the individual. And to think that they called me a fascist, a Nazi! My philosophy merely elucidates the ideals of America’s founding fathers in language that even you and your sycophantic friends can understand!”
Question: Are you bitter, Miss Rand?
Answer: Far from it! I’m pleased to see that my books are still selling briskly, so perhaps the American System shall prevail after all. I wonder how many books my Ivy League critics have sold since they died.
Question: I believe Bertrand Russell’s books are still selling well -
Answer: [impatiently] That was just a rhetorical question! See here, young man - I’m a very busy woman. Now, do you have any further questions?
Question: I’m sorry! How do you respond to being called a cult leader?
Answer: You are quite amusing, as well as impertinent! A cult of individualists, you are implying? That’s one of those nonsense phrases like Anarchist Government, or Property is Theft.
Question: Does a rich man deserve to be rewarded merely because he is rich?
Answer: Of course not. Being rich IS the reward. But neither should he be punished for it. Just as a poor man should neither be punished nor rewarded for being poor.
Question: You were well known for being an atheist. Playing Devil’s Advocate - or rather, God’s Advocate - doesn’t mankind need religion in order to have moral values?
Answer: Absolutely not! First of all, look at all the terrible carnage throughout world history due to religious quarrels. Virtually every society in history believed that God or The Gods were on its side. Since passing on to a higher plane of existence, I have been informed that what most religions refer to as God, is, in reality, a hyper-altruistic cytoplasmic-mitochondrial being from a wormhole galaxy millions of light-years from Earth. If you insist on assigning a gender to this being, it is technically female, because in nearly all animal life on Earth, mitochondrial DNA is passed down to future generations only from the female sex. Now just because there is not an omnipotent, omniscient God who spies on people like a kind of invisible KGB agent, and who sentences the infidels to an eternity of excruciating agony in The Lake of Fire, it does not give atheists - or deluded theists, for that matter - the license to strong-arm or oppress others. Atheism’s basic moral premise is this: You cannot deny to others the rights that you grant to yourself! Scientifically speaking, you cannot obtain free energy, as it were. For an atheist to believe otherwise is to believe - hypocritically - in the Divine Right of aristocracy and the nullification of science. Without science, atheism is pointless! Logic dictates that you cannot be an atheist unless you believe that human beings are born with inalienable rights of life and freedom.
Question: Yes, but what if I’m an atheist dictator who has never read your books, and who believes Might Equals Right? How are you going to stop me from invading your peace loving atheist country?
Answer: Ah-ha! You finally asked an astute question! Now we are at the crux of the matter. Since you, by definition, cannot tell your soldiers that God is on their side, you shall have a very difficult time of convincing them that their cause is just. I, on the other hand, shall have the righteous cause of self-defense on my side. Defenders always have moral superiority to aggressors, and only an insane person would gainsay that statement! Aside from the issue of moral righteousness, it is accepted military theory that a military offensive must have at least a 3-to-1 advantage in firepower in order to defeat a defending military force, so your task will be difficult indeed. I will defeat you and I shall defeat you!
Question: Miss Rand, in a lighter vein, how do you spend your time in the after-life?
Answer: Most of the time, I'm busy running Rand Railways - which, needless to say, always runs on time. I take that back - I do stage the occasional train wreck, just to liven things up a bit. At my home in the city of Philosopolis, I enjoy arguing with my next-door neighbor Plato. The first time we met, I told him that his utopian Republic was nothing but a society of lay-abouts, leeches, and moochers. He replied that after having met me, he was seriously reconsidering his belief in the equality of the sexes!
Question: Have you met any of the other great dead novelists in the afterlife?
Answer: Well, I used to live in Literaton, but most of the writers there are such long-winded bores, they make even John Galt seem taciturn. By the way, Billy Shakespeare of the Literaton Daily Bugle wrote in a book review that my John Galt speech in Atlas Shrugged is the most thought provoking 50 pages in the history of literature. Evidently he was unaware that it’s 63 pages….
Question: Your voice is starting to fade, Miss Rand, so I’ll just conclude by saying thank you for inspiring me to write, and for teaching me how to write, although my loves scenes are a bit stilted -
Answer:[voice echoing in the distance] Don’t ever bother me again, young man!
* * *
After a busy but mostly futile week of trying to raise campaign funds, I drove to L.A. to pay Angie and Tina a visit. Tina was finishing up her last few weeks of work on Revenge of the Amazons, while Angie had been buying-out the inventory of several Beverly Hills clothing boutiques.
Dark-eyed Serena greeted me with a big smile when she opened the doors to Alex's mansion. "Good morning, Mister Denny. Angie has cried for you - she misses you so much!”
I joked, "Her credit card limits must be max-ed out. Has Tina cried for me?"
"No, but she talks about you very much." She blushed rosily and then glided away.
"Uh-oh."
In Tina's room, I leapt into bed with the sleeping Tina. "I'm a mad rapist!" I said in a demented voice as I twisted her right arm into a hammerlock.
"I should be so lucky," she grumbled. "Damn it, let me go - don't touch me. I feel shitty 'cause Chesty's in rehab for a muthafuckin’ heroin habit. Don't tell nobody, ah-ight? And if you say it's AIDS, I'll brain ya."
"I don't automatically assume that Chesty has AIDS, but he's gay and shoots heroin - Ow! Bitch! It's always hit with you, ain't it?" I rubbed my sore arm. "One of these days, Alice, I'm sending you to the moon!"
"Do me, Ralph."
"I'll get Angie - "
"She's in the can." She hissed, "Hurry up and fuck me. I need your worn-out cock, Hercules."
After my orgasm two minutes later, Tina picked up the thread of our previous conversation. "We're filming around Chesty, but that can only go on for a week before they got to replace him or write his part out of the movie."
I joked, "Maybe I can be a body double for him - we're about the same size."
"Don't tell that to Jimmy. He'll send you in for a wardrobe fittin' - Hey, get back in bed – you’re not escapin’ that easy."
0 comments:
Post a Comment