Mindbenders (18 page)

“Everything is
business
now,” Avery interrupted. “Government, Media, Religion—it’s all business, competing for attention, for mindshare. Most of our work is influencing consumer attitudes and spending, stockholder’s meetings, Nielsen ratings, neutralizing or misleading competitors, cerebral placement for new products—”

“Cerebral placement?” Max said.

Avery shrugged. “It’s the marketing buzzword,” he said. “There’s a section of the brain, the—” He clicked his fingers a few times.

“Orbitofrontal cortex,” Volkov interjected.

“—Right. If you plant a product suggestion there, you’re home free. That part of the brain just bypasses all rational judgment or vetting. It’s an automatic purchase. Saves an incredible amount of money in advertising and PR.”

“And you’re telling me that’s funding this whole enterprise?” Max said and the skepticism in his voice seemed to set something off in Avery.

“I don’t think you realize the scope of what we’re doing. Remember five years ago, when the analysts started saying real estate had peaked, that it was a bubble about to burst? That anybody who got in after that was going to get killed? Yet people kept buying—adjustable-rate mortgages that were built to explode, right? You think that just happened?”

Avery was up and pacing around now, feeding on his own pitchman energy. “SUV’s—they drive like trucks but they go off-road. Except that almost none of their drivers ever even bother. They get half the gas mileage of cars. Gas went from $1.50 to $3.50 a gallon in less than three years and sales of SUV’s kept growing—at twice the profit margin of cars. You think that was an accident?” He had abandoned his composure now and was waving his arms around like a traffic cop.

“Think of the power, Max, to show a client you can move an
entire marketplace
like that! We started with a staff of five and twenty part-time drones. Now we have over five thousand  in forty locations. Geneva and Shanghai open in the next two months.”

“But you haven’t mentioned the most creative part of your work,” Max said, in a light tone that didn’t sound like him. “Making nuclear plants malfunction and the Mayor of Copenhagen bark like a dog in front of witnesses.”

Avery’s smile didn’t waver but he glanced at Volkov, who responded quickly. “A child’s tricks,” he said. “We used to change the instrument needles in the lab from a half mile away, Maximka, just for fun. You remember.” Max nodded, though there was no nostalgia on his face. “There was no real harm done.”

“I don’t think we had anything to do with the Mayor of Copenhagen,” Avery mused. “At least none that I know of.”

“Well, let’s just say you benefit from instability anywhere in the world,” Max offered. “When people doubt their officials, utilities, religion, the institutions that make them feel safe, that’s an opportunity for the OPEC of Hope.”

“A lot of what’s unfortunate in the world,” Avery answered, “is fortunate for us.” He shrugged. ”The world is filled with misfortune. That only shows how much we’re needed.”

“Don’t you think somebody’s going to catch on eventually?” Max pressed. “Some ambitious prosecutor? Scandal-sheet reporter?”

“We’re protected,” Avery said.

“From
everybody
?” Max burst, looking amused and skeptical at once. At this, Avery and Volkov struggled to suppress self-satisfied grins.

“I told you he was a genius,” Vokov said. “Jim knows how the game is played.”

“We had our own rider,” Avery confided, “in the Homeland Security Bill. Our work is national security and classified top secret—anything we do, no matter who the client or even if there is no client. We can’t be prosecuted.”

“Can’t even be
charged
,” Volkov crowed. “No congressional oversight, no subpoenas, no grand juries. Offer
that
to a client and see them light up. It’s beautiful.”

“What congressman proposed
that
?”

“Well, no one’s name is on it,” Volkov answered. “But the Majority and Minority Leader both think they put it in, so no one is going to ask questions.”

“This is Pietr’s territory,” Avery said and there was a medal and a caution in the phrase.

Max stared at Avery for a long moment. “And you really think you can keep this quiet? Over time? With all the people who’ll know? With all the people who’ll be watching?”

Volkov rose instantly at this. He wasn’t a tall man, not next to Avery but he pulled himself up to his full height and there was fire in his eyes. “How do you think Bush won in Ohio?” he said, his voice rasping. “All those precincts where the exit polls said Kerry won—exit polls that are dead accurate, time after time, suddenly all wrong? Those people told the pollsters who they
meant
to vote for. Once they got inside the booth, that’s not the button they pushed.” He glowered at the bunch of us skeptics. “Of course people were watching. There were articles in high-profile publications, preaching to the choir. They were roundly ignored.” He leaned over the table and rapped on it with his forefinger. “People need to feel
secure
to challenge power. When they’re frightened, they have their own problems to worry about.” He paced back and forth a few more times before finally acknowledging Avery glaring at him. Then he took his seat again sullenly.

“That all might change after the next election,” I said. Volkov looked at me like he hadn’t considered I could speak on my own. But he answered the point, though he answered it to Max.

“We work for
both
parties.
Everyone
wants us deep and dark.”

“The point,” Avery concluded, “is that we’re
protected
. From the top down.” He jumped up to the whiteboard, eager to change the subject.

“We recruit on college campuses, smart kids who need some extra money or want to start paying off their student loans. Who complains about getting paid for meditating on different subjects a few hours a day? Most of our persuasion targets require no more than twenty minutes at a clip, so we can service fifty clients a day just out of this office. Our work is all billable hours, like lawyers and accountants. We’re all over the world and, as you can see, growing fast.”

Max was smiling now, not a happy smile—he didn’t seem to have a happy smile—but an intrigued one. “Okay, I’ll bite,” he said. “It’s brilliant. You’ve got the world on a string. What do you need
me
for?”

Volkov started rubbing the side of his nose, as though he’d suddenly developed a boil. “We have…other work,” he said. “Sensitive jobs, the kind you can’t give to drones. Some of which you’ve already figured out, some of which you know nothing. I have built a small crew I can trust. I know what they’re capable of and I know they will be discreet, they will not act rashly and they will not be caught. You are the Crown Jewel of the Soviet system, Maximka. You could choose your own jobs.”

“I’ll get Bin Laden for you,” Max said. “I could do that.”

“Come on, Max,” Volkov moaned. “It has to be something they’ll
pay
us for.”

“No one would pay you to find Bin Laden?”

“Finding him isn’t an issue,” Avery sighed. “He’s off-limits.”

“C’mon, Max, think like a grown-up,” Volkov urged. “When there was that whole flap about wiretaps without court orders, we cleaned up—they farmed out all the important cases to us. Remember—no oversight.”

“More to the point,” Avery said, “is it so terrible to help Company A get Company B’s peanut butter recipe? Or to find out how much they plan to bid for that big contract? To tip off the cameraman when and where Angelina and Brad are getting married? Or where they’re arguing? You’d be amazed at the return on smalltime stuff like this.”

“Or it might be a little more…gritty,” Max said, his expression dark. “Yes?”

Avery wanted to settle the waters, to smooth the room but Volkov was squirming, full of energy and fight, though it wasn’t at all clear who he was fighting. “Max,” he said, rising as though he couldn’t remain in his seat another second, “you don’t have to be a miserable stunted monk running from the world, hiding in back alleys and paranoid about everyone who wants to speak to you. You could be a consultant to a major corporation, with a nice house in the suburbs and a wife and kids, a Mercedes, vacations—a normal life.” I must have snickered—Volkov turned on me as though I’d pulled a gun out of my pocket. “Don’t laugh unless you know what it means to never be normal, to never be
able
to be normal!” and the anger and frustration in his voice were close to the bone. “You wanted that once, Max, you wanted it badly—I haven’t forgotten how badly.”

“I made a mistake,” Max said gravely. “I haven’t forgotten either.”

“Maybe you couldn’t do better at the time,” Volkov’s voice softened. “I’m not judging. But now—” he glanced at Avery, who nodded, “—now Max, twenty jobs a year. Twenty! You choose! Some of them, you’ll probably come in here or to one of our other centers, control someone for twenty minutes at a distant location or send out a suggestion and be finished. Sometimes there’ll be a little travel, first-class, on us, with layovers. Three quarters of a million dollars a year plus an expense account and bonuses for jobs we particularly want your help with.” Volkov tried to muster a look of sympathy, without quite putting it across. “I remember your scruples, Max—that’s not a problem. Surely there are twenty jobs we could all agree on?”

The two men stood across from one another, leaning over the table like rams about to butt horns. I don’t think either of them was aware of it. Max bit his lip; he was doing a slow burn and I started looking for the storm cellar. “Twenty jobs,” he mulled. “And not Bin Laden.”

“I told you, he’s—”

“Off-limits, yes, you said that. What kind of job were you doing in Florida two days ago?”

 “We had no job in Florida,” Avery added.

“Yes, you did,” Max continued, voice rising. “They were your guys. Same van, same guns and headsets, same feeble-minded approach.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Avery insisted. He glanced at Volkov but received no glance in reply.

“Your men killed Dave Monaghan, two days ago in Florida. If there’s any chance of us working together, I need to know why.”

“Who’s Dave Monaghan?” Avery asked, now staring hard in Volkov’s direction, still without response.

“I’m sorry,” Max said, turning toward the door. “We can’t do business on this basis.” He looked over at me. “Time to go,” he said quietly.

Volkov finally found a way to look Avery in the eye, fleetingly. “Let us talk a few minutes, Jim,” Volkov said. “Privately.”

“You said he—”

“We’ll come to your office. Just a few minutes,” Volkov was the one trying to soothe things now. Avery, glaring at Volkov, stepped deftly between Max and the door.

“We’re doing great things here, Max,” he said. “I want you to be part of it.” He clapped him on the shoulder, reassuring and turning him away at the same time. Then he went out, closing the door behind him with a resounding
thunk
.

Volkov watched the door close and seemed to expand in the chair. He had been solicitous and respectful, second banana, with Avery around; now he was filling the empty space, the man in charge.

“So,” Max sighed, “nothing changes, eh, Pietr? You don’t tell Avery everything?”

“Your friend was a mistake,” Volkov said impassively. “If he was important to you, I’m sorry.”

“What kind of mistake?”

“I don’t know—I didn’t even know his name until you mentioned it to Miriam.” He shrugged, a big theatrical shrug, a Russian shrug if I had any idea what that was. “Someone exceeded his authority. Someone decided he was a threat. Why? I don’t know. I am sorry, truly.”

“He was shot through the head and then they blew up his house, made it look like a gas explosion. The guys who did it were under suggestion. Don’t tell me this was some local
apparatchik
going off on his own.” His eyes narrowed. “You have some operation on the side, something Avery doesn’t know about.”

“Jim was in politics for sixteen years,” Volkov muttered. “He’s very comfortable with what he doesn’t know.”

Max leveled a finger at him. “It’s the old game—he’ll only be comfortable as long as you succeed, Petushka.”

Volkov drew himself up again, as though on rails. “How can we fail?” he asked. “Who do you think will stop us? If you tell people, straight-out, what we do, they’ll think you’re joking or deranged. They’ll laugh at you. Meanwhile, we’re backing candidates—who will win—in Kenya, Estonia, South Korea and France—
this
year. We already have elected friends in high places in twenty-two countries. Who will stand against us?” He leaned over the desk again, a plaintive note in his voice. “Max, all your life, you cling to ambivalence. Nothing makes you happy. Be what you are. Use what nature has given you.”

“Dave said the opposite,” Max responded. “He said just because we could, didn’t mean we should. He said we had too much power to give it to governments. Now you want to offer it to
corporations
!”

“Dave Monaghan was a cancer,” Volkov spat. “He’d have us all bank tellers, begging for scraps.”

“Ahh, you
do
remember him,” Max said and I could see something in him relax. “That makes this so much easier.”

I didn’t see Volkov touch any buttons or trip any wires but, all at once, the door opened, four very colorful-looking guards appeared and took positions around the table. There was a tall bullet-headed guy, a very skinny black man with very cool-looking dreads and tattoos and a kind of drowned-rat in a sweatshirt and rippling muscles. Marat followed them in  but Volkov waved him off, annoyed. “We’re fine,” he said and the white-haired assassin turned, glowering and left.

“Max,” Volkov said, his voice deepening, “think about this. What is this wonderful life you have, out among the alligators, not using the skills you were bred for? Making nothing of yourself? Sincerely—I’m asking as an old friend who’s concerned for you.”

Max looked at him for a long time before answering. “That’s done, one way or the other,” he said finally. “I have nothing to go back to, whatever happens.”