Executive Treason (6 page)

Tel Aviv, Israel
1058 hrs., local time

Ira Wurlin knocked on the solid metal door. Few people ever got this far. Fewer still passed through to the room beyond. For the last eleven years of his life, Wurlin felt two overriding emotions.

He admitted to only one. He told his boss he was honored to serve him so directly. In his quiet time and private places, he felt cursed.

Now 51, Ira Wurlin wondered where his life had gone. He’d forgone marriage and raising a family to serve almost day and night as the principal analyst and aide to a man the West knew very little about. So, like the man he worked for, Wurlin led a secret existence. No children or grandchildren would ever be born to him and pass on stories about his exceptional service to their country.

He was an unimposing, ordinary man, the kind you’d never notice in a crowd. Thinning hair, glasses in bland, clear frames, a short-sleeved white shirt that would have looked better on him if he could lose 15 pounds. He was a blank man in a colorful world, and it was this virtual invisibility that made him so good at his job.

Wurlin took short deliberate steps, always with the same pace, which said all you needed to know about him. Work was his life. He slept more nights at his office than he did at home. He was an analyst. Only one man could fire him, and that wasn’t going to happen. Yet, like every secretary, assistant, or even support staff in the complex, Wurlin wore an ID badge with a good-for-one-day-only computer chip. Try to traverse the halls without the proper chip, you were a dead man…or woman. There was blood on the walls to prove it.

A control officer watching a monitor three floors higher in the nondescript Tel Aviv headquarters always noted when a “blip” moved from one quadrant—it could be an office or a bathroom—to another. This blip was going where it was supposed to.

“Enter.”

Wurlin didn’t have to identify himself. Jacob Schecter knew he was coming, as he did so many other things. Schecter was head of Hamossad Lemodi’in Vetafkidim Meyuhadim. Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad.

“Ah, Ira,” he started as if surprised, which he wasn’t. “What do you have for me?”

Schecter had risen through the Israeli Air Force, the IAF, and flown on more unrecorded missions than those logged by paperwork. He was educated in intelligence specialty schools, though he never talked of his training or his experiences.

His wavy brown hair was longer than in his military years, but his wardrobe remained consistent with his military code: a tan, button-down, short-sleeve shirt and khaki pants. Nothing flashy, nothing that signified his supremacy in the Mossad or in the government. Tradition had it that even the identity of the Mossad head remained a secret as a matter of national security. Rumors flew. But rumors were usually wrong.

Jacob Schecter didn’t have a birthdate or a birthplace. He looked to be in his late 50s, but even Ira wasn’t certain. No Air Force friends ever visited, and he never spoke of a family, wife, children, or parents. Schecter might not even be his real name.

As Director of the Mossad, he had supreme authority over the security of Israel, guarding the nation from outside threats, gathering political, military, and civilian intelligence, and evaluating the information. He reported to only one person: the Prime Minister du jour.

The other focal point in his stark white room was the utilitarian industrial office desk, which contained visible locks and hidden sub-locks that Schecter alone could open. The only creature comfort was a very worn, coffee-stained leather chair. A picture of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, hung over his desk. Three clocks, representing current time in Washington, Tel Aviv, and—for historical sake—Moscow, were lined up at eye level on the opposite wall.

What wasn’t visible was the metal lining within the walls. It effectively blocked eavesdropping devices and microwave signals. Even with that security protection, Schecter’s office was swept by Mossad agents, not once a week or even once a day, but twice each day.

It was from here that Jacob Schecter sought ways to protect Israel’s secrets and uncover those of his enemies…or his friends.

He was one of the most protected, most protective, and most secretive men in the world.

He was also one of the most aware. Except for today. He was trying to figure out the meaning of some unencrypted messages the Mossad had received via e-mail. Schecter laid them on his desk. There was no need to give them to Wurlin. He had already vetted the content over the last seventy-two hours.

“So, Ira, what is your opinion?” Schecter preferred first names. Trust mattered more than rank.

Wurlin didn’t need prompting. They were scheduled to discuss the matter of the person they referred to as Chantul.

“Simple matters. Nothing more. We get a little bit of this and that.”

“Grade?” asked Jacob.

“D. No better.”

Schecter read the most recent seven-line correspondence again. “Interesting. And nothing.”

“Like the last.”

“Are we being wooed or baited, my friend?”

“I can’t be sure. Not yet.”

Wurlin took back the file. “The contact is traceable. That is what concerns me. Counter-intelligence could be back-channeled very easily.”

“And traced here,” the head of Mossad added. “I’m worried, not because it exists, but because it exists and says nothing.”

Wurlin had come to the same conclusion. An uninvited operative was knocking at their door. Why?

“Verify every single word, Ira. And my orders stand. Do not respond. Nothing but silence from us.”

“You are more suspect than before? This Chantul worries you.”

“Everything worries me, Ira.” He said it with a low, rumbling laugh, not a humorous one, the kind that signified his concern. “Now what else do you have today?”

Wurlin reported on a deep-cover Mossad agent who had infiltrated the Iran University of Science and Technology. An operation was in play to determine which Iranian professors were freelancing on the stepped-up nuclear arms program. Mossad wanted to know who they were, how dangerous their knowledge could be, and how they could be turned or neutralized. He would leave the final option open for Schecter. The briefing was another reminder that Israel lived day-to-day. They were surrounded by enemies and hated by most of the world. The country and its defenses were principally sustained through their high tax rates and their ever-tenuous relationships with the West.

As a people, Israelis stayed alive through an unparalleled determination and their government’s reliance on intelligence. It was dangerous and time-consuming to cast the net, but Jacob Schecter’s spies succeeded where America’s CIA failed.

Schecter continued to listen, but the news was always the same. Bad. Iran, Iraq, al-Qaeda. Renewed anti-Semitism around the world. The French. Some days, even the Americans. That’s what brought him back to Chantul.

He gave this freelancer a name, one with a specific biblical reference.

During the voyage of the Ark, Noah discovered that the lions had become far too dangerous. They liked dining on the other passengers. So he prayed to God, who answered him by sending the lions into a deep sleep. But soon, with lions asleep, rats quickly multiplied and made life on the Ark even worse. So Noah prayed again. God listened and woke the lion for one roar. Out of its mouth sprung a cat—in Hebrew, chantul. The creature, the first of its kind, was blessed with the timeless job of dispatching the rats.

This Chantul, his wily cat, came from another great lion. But as he sat and listened to Ira Wurlin recite the day’s bad news, one thought continued to occupy his mind.

Who were the rats? He struggled over the same answer his American counterpart came up with. Everyone.

The White House Situation Room

“Hello, Duke,” Morgan Taylor said, when the Speaker of the House entered the White House Situation Room.

“Mr. Vice President,” Patrick replied in kind. “I see we’ve got a little excitement.”

“Excitement we don’t need.” The comment served to deflate the Speaker’s enthusiasm.

“Perhaps a poor choice of words.”

Taylor affirmed the admission with a nod. He then sat at the head of the long table and dialed the National Intelligence chief. “This is Taylor. Get me Evans. He’s expecting my call.”

Twenty seconds later, he was connected.

Duke Patrick looked on. He was 45, stocky, but not overweight. His one-inch heels lifted him to six feet. But it was his head of hair that made him appear even taller as well as distinguished. At the top and sides, thick fire-red locks, close to his ears, a band of gray. He was someone who caught the camera’s attention in the way Teddy Lodge had the year before. Patrick was obviously annoyed to hear only half the conversation. He took the seat opposite the vice president and raised an eyebrow.

“What do we know, Jack?” Taylor swiveled the chair away from the speaker.

“The Australians have things locked down. They’re working on getting the device out. It’s not the kind of thing you hurry along.”

“Understood. Are we getting one of ours there?” It was the kind of thing he used to order, not ask. The election had changed things.

“On the way,” Evans stated. “The top explosive forensics guy from the FBI. But the SASR is a tight bunch. They know what they’re doing.”

Taylor was grateful that cooperation among the intelligence services had increased in recent years. “I’ll give Foss a call.” David Foss was the prime minister.

Evans agreed, then added, “I don’t like this one bit. It’s pure luck how the damned thing was found. And if it had gone off when expected…” He didn’t finish the thought.

“Do you think we’ll learn anything from the bomb itself?”

“We always do. Everyone who assembles one has a signature. Sometimes it’s in the wiring, other times the marking on the C-4. It could be the casing, the type of electrical tape, or the solder. We’ll be examining for anything and everything. And then there’s the off chance we’ll lift some clean fingerprints.”

Taylor felt Patrick’s eyes boring into the back of his head as Evans began to explain the chain of events. “Hold on a second.” Taylor decided that Patrick should hear what made the situation deadly, not exciting. He turned back to the congressman. “Duke’s with me. I’ll put you on the box.”

Patrick smiled, thinking he had won something. Taylor enabled the speaker phone. “Go ahead, we’re both on.”

“Hello, Congressman.”

“Hello, Mr. Director. Nice to talk with you.”

Nice? Taylor glared. Another faux pas. “Mr. Director,” he said, reestablishing the seriousness, “this is a good chance for the Speaker to get a crash course in international terrorism.”

Vice President Morgan Taylor effectively cut the third most important man in the United States government down to size.

Lebanon, Kansas
Tuesday, 19 June
12:05 A.M. CDT

The radio talk host potted up the cut of the Beatles’ “Revolution.” He had adopted it as something of an anthem right after the election, and unabashedly used it to keep his audience fired.

“Good morning, good evening, good night, America. It’s been six hours since I last talked with you. Six hours since the Strong Nation gathered yesterday afternoon. Has your life gotten any better in six hours? No,” Elliott Strong said in the rambling soliloquy that opened his late-night talk show. “It hasn’t gotten any better because you haven’t done anything. Have you written your congressman? No. Have you faxed the nightly news shows? No. Have you complained about their liberal reporting? No. Have you gotten off your butts? No, you haven’t. So tonight you get to hear me. No open phones. At least not now. If we go to the phones, I don’t want to hear, ‘Maybe,’ or ‘I’ll try,’ or ‘I’ll get to it soon.’ And definitely not, ‘Oh, Elliot, I have the carpool, my day is jammed, I wish I could.’ I only want to talk to people who are willing to tell me what they’re going to do to take back the country. If I don’t get any calls, then you’re just going to have to endure me for four unending hours. Except for a few important breaks for commercials,” he added jokingly. “Like right now.”

The fact that Elliott Strong broadcast from the geographic center of the contiguous forty-eight states was no accident. He wanted to visibly channel American opinion from an appropriate location. What better place than the epicenter? The site was marked by a limestone sign along Kansas Highway 191, a mile-long road that existed only for the purpose of leading visitors to latitude 9′0″, longitude 8′5″.

Actually, taking Alaska and Hawaii into account, the geographic center was in an even more remote area, near Rugby, North Dakota, but Lebanon, Kansas, was good enough for him. He had his satellite uplink, a web manager to run his dot-com, and a helicopter that could quickly get him to Hastings Municipal Airport in Nebraska, some fifty-six miles away.

Lebanon, Kansas, was not really representative of America as a whole. As of the last census, the population was 97.7 percent white, 1.3 percent Hispanic, 1.0 percent Native American. There were no African-Americans. Out of 312 inhabitants, Elliott Strong was the most famous. That’s just the way he liked it.

“So what’s it going to be? Me or you?” Strong looked at the phones. They were already lit up, but he wasn’t going to give in that easily. The audience couldn’t see. They deserved a good kick in the butt, and they were going to get it tonight.

“Okay, while you think about whether or not you’re going to dial the phone, let’s review what’s happened in the world today. What you won’t read in the New Yuck Times”—his joke—“and the rest of the liberal press.”

Strong used the usual wire service copy, but his primary sources were the most right wing members of Congress and their aides, who briefed him on legitimate legislative issues and fed him outright political lies they wanted spread.

Strong would lay it all out—some as fact, some as rumor designed to undermine moderates and liberals, and some as plain malarkey. Each subject helped stir up the audience and make for a good show. Strong played the part of an increasingly fierce attack dog for the extreme right. They thought they had the better of him. He knew they didn’t.

“The New Yuck Times reports that ninety-eight nuclear devices from the former Soviet Union are still missing.” He emphasized former in such a way as to suggest Russia was to be regarded as the enemy it was decades ago. Americans needed enemies to hate, and it was still far easier to wrap his message around the need to depose nations with un-American ideologies than attack faceless terrorists.

“Where do you think they could be?” he asked snidely. “Afghanistan? Chechnya? Iran? How about San Diego or St. Louis?” The thought hung in the air, silently, powerfully. The message was clear: Don’t trust foreigners in your neighborhood.

“And speaking of Russia, what’s going on there? Is anybody paying attention?” Strong asked with bombastic flair. “Hello? This should be front-page news. But you won’t find it in the leftist papers. No, sir. Not on CNN or the so-called progressive—that’s double speak for liberal—talk shows. But, fortunately you’ve come to the right place.” Strong went on to explain how the new Russian president continued to crack down on personal freedoms.

After a few minutes on that topic, he was onto another.

“Communist rebels struck again in Chile. Thirty-four dead freedom fighters, including a missionary.” Again another veiled message, this time for the Christian right. “What year is it there? 1971. President Lamden, why don’t you put them away?

“And then there are those Pakistan and Indian leaders. You pronounce their names, I can’t. The liberals praise them for their courage to make peace. Give me a break. Like they’re really out sipping green tea and playing chess. You know they’re stockpiling more nuclear weapons. And if you think otherwise, then you’ve got to be smoking some really serious cannabis, which, by the way, is illegal. So when those mushroom clouds blow this way—you do understand the wind blows from West to East in the northern hemisphere—who do we thank? Taylor, for putting one over on us when he was president.

“And liberals keep trying to get us to believe that Israel’s prime minister is happier than a clam at high tide. Well, my friends, that’s just wrong.”

If his audience checked the actual
New York Times
story, the opposite was true. Blanca Kaplov’s troubles were widely reported. But that didn’t matter. Elliott Strong put his claims out over the air, and his listeners took it as gospel.

“Believe me, that place is going to explode like a hot keg and Mister Lamden”— he hated calling Henry Lamden president—“is not going to be the Super Glue to keep things together.

“And Congress? They’re forcing through one piece of anti-individual, big-government legislation after another. The country isn’t going to look the same for your children. We’re going to be living in a country formerly known as the United States of America. Mark my words, this administration is going to get to the 2nd Amendment this time around.” There hadn’t been a word of discussion about banning guns since either Taylor or Lamden took office. “It’s not on the docket yet, but my sources tell me they have it in their sights.

“Which brings me back to what are you going to do about it.” He became more agitated. “You know, I think you really don’t want a strong nation,” he said, a play on words. “Not really. You say you do, but you really don’t. You’re a bunch of sheep.” He could just about hear his viewers chime in, No, we’re not! “Sleepy sheep being herded around by a phantom administration—unelected, yet serving for four years. Four years!” he repeated. “The Lamden-Taylor White House holds you in its powerful grip…not because they have the power. Because you let them!”

Strong paused for maximum impact. “Oh sure, you’re comforted by the illusion that you live in a democracy. You choose to believe that the Constitution—the law of the land—somehow sanctions this government. Every night someone whines, ‘Oh, Elliott, aren’t we a nation by the people?’ Well, how can we be, when we didn’t elect the two men at the very top! Every night someone e-mails me, ‘But Elliott, we are a country for the people.’ But how can we be, when both pretenders have no right to serve us?

“Interesting, isn’t it, how the Lamden administration reads into the Constitution a definition of justice that suits them.” Here he actually ignored Constitutional law. Lamden became president because of the Constitution. And Taylor was confirmed by the Senate, also under guidelines established by the founding fathers and ratified by the states. No matter. He didn’t worry about the truth getting in the way of a good show.

“And they say we live in a republic of laws. Well, my friends, I ask you, again: Who elected them? Not me. Not you. Not one of us. Not a single person, either Republican or Democrat.”

Elliott Strong’s increasingly fiery delivery was drawing record ratings for the radio syndication company that sold his show across the country. As he liked to boast, “Now on three hundred forty-two right-minded stations.”

He’d begun his attacks just ten days after the inauguration. He provided the tantalizing words. His audience ate it up. And Strong’s constituency grew every night. Not since the rhetoric of Father Charles E. Coughlin in the 1920s and ‘30s had anyone turned against a president with such vitriolic fervor. Not Rush, Savage, O’Reilly, or Hannity.

Like the egomaniacal Coughlin, Strong used the airwaves as a bully pulpit, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy, politics and opinion, winning converts and driving up ad revenue. It was all as calculated as his decision to broadcast from Lebanon, Kansas.

Elliott Strong’s brand of talk radio existed, in part, because the Fairness Doctrine no longer did.

In 1949, the United States Federal Communication Commission mandated that station license holders were “public trustees.” They had the obligation to provide reasonable opportunity for the open discussion of conflicting points of view on controversial topics.

The policy was born out of concern that broadcasters should not be permitted to use the airwaves to advocate singular political perspectives. The Fairness Doctrine required stations to present opposing points of view. Failing to do so could result in the revocation of an owner’s broadcast license.

The doctrine worked in tandem to Section 315 of the Communications Act of 1937, a federal law, which required stations to offer “equal opportunity” to all legally qualified candidates running for any office if they allowed one candidate unpaid airtime.

The principle was further underscored by the 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case of Red Lion Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC. The station, licensed to Red Lion Co., had broadcast a “Christian Crusade” program in which an author was attacked. When the author requested airtime under the Fairness Doctrine to respond to the claims, the station refused. The FCC ruled that the station had failed to comply with policy: a decision that was affirmed by the Supreme Court ruling. Red Lion lost the station.

The victory actually scared many stations away from covering any contentious topic. A so-called “chilling effect,” opposite of the FCC’s intention, resulted in less opinion on the airwaves—radio and television.

In the 1980s, deregulation fever swept the country, fueled by the philosophies and policies of the Reagan administration. The new Chairman of the FCC, appointed by President Reagan, vowed to kill the Fairness Doctrine. In 1985, he succeeded. The FCC argued in its “Fairness Report” that the doctrine might indeed have a “chilling effect” on public opinion, and could be in violation of the First Amendment. Two years later, the courts declared in Meredith Corp. v. FCC that the doctrine was not mandated by Congress, and that the commission did not have to enforce all of its provisions. The FCC eliminated the Fairness Doctrine in August 1987, though its dominion over the area of talk was itself debatable.

Today, the broadcasting world is populated by hundreds of TV channels and the proliferation of radio stations. More than ever before. But due to further deregulation and consolidation of ownership, a short list of owners control the vast majority of stations.

Instead of the multitude of perspectives, the airwaves and cable channels are populated with only a few real voices but hundreds of echoes. Legitimate political dialogue has been further eroded through budget restrictions dictated from the top of the vertically integrated companies. Now news is more widely debated than reported. Corporations have determined that it’s far cheaper to have panelists shout at each other across a desk than to actually cover the complexities of a story in the field.

Which gets back to the death of the Fairness Doctrine. Once the FCC eliminated the guidelines, single-mindedness was allowed to rush to AM radio. Bullying flourished. In the process, talk show hosts, claiming to offer a forum for everyone’s opinion, typically seek to reinforce their own. Hate found a home on AM radio.

“So what are you going to do?” Strong asked again. He caught the way he gesticulated in his mirror. Effective. Emotional. He loved it. It was as close to inciting a riot as he’d ever gotten and it made for great radio. Strong imagined how cross-country truck drivers, workers on the late shift, and insomniacs must be thrusting their fists in the air in support.

“You want to know what you can do?” It was usually you. “You,” he knew sounded more effective, more personal, “are the government. Not the liberal Congress. Not a president you didn’t elect. Not a vice president you booted out. Not the Supreme Court. You are the government. Do you have any real idea what that means?” He could almost hear his audience shout a collective “What?” “Ever hear of something called an Amendment?” He spelled it. “A-m-e-n-d-m-e-n-t. Do you remember what that is? Look it up. Google it.” He sounded exasperated, as if he was complaining to a specific caller. But it was for all of his listeners. Twenty million letter writers. Twenty million complainers. Twenty million people who Washington hated to hear from.

“What is it?” he asked rhetorically. “It’s the way you can change things.”

The phone lines continued to blink.

“It’s your right! More than that, it’s your responsibility. Let me give you an example. Theodore Roosevelt. The twenty-sixth president of the United States. Courageous. A fighter. A Rough Rider. A leader of a truly strong nation. Here’s what old Teddy Roosevelt said.” He read from a paper.

“‘Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he stands by the country.’” He read it a second time for impact. “Again, ‘Patriotism does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he stands by the country.’ Roosevelt told Americans, ‘It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is—’ and listen carefully, ‘It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country.’” He repeated a phrase. “‘It is unpatriotic not to oppose…’ Very interesting, but TR wasn’t finished. He proclaimed, ‘In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.’