There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads
on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and
miseries. On such a full sea we are now
afloat. And we must take the current
when it serves, or lose our ventures.
William Shakespeare
Sam was on a roll now and felt
increasingly more invigorated and confident.
His boss and friend Kurt Rowan was absolutely right, when it comes to
writing a book just sit down and dig in!
True, he wasn’t exactly sure how those pesky segues worked from the
pebbles-in-a-calm-pond analogy Kurt had described, crucial in order to tie
together each separate chapter into a coherent finished product, but he was
having fun nevertheless plunking away on his electric typewriter and thoroughly
enjoyed his new hobby.
Oh well thought Sam, like Ralph
Waldo Emerson once said, “Everything is the cause of itself.” Nellie was happy too that her husband was no
longer in the doldrums. Since finishing the first two
chapters introducing his hero Duke Mitchum to the world, Sam kept busy creating
additional chapters about things that he himself had always found
fascinating.
He even accompanied his typing on
the old IBM Selectric with listening to country western classics selected from
his extensive collection of eight-track tapes and vinyl records. And after
three months of honing, he felt confident he could share the beginnings of his
crude novel with good buddy Archie Jefferson, so that’s what he did, a few days
before the 2008 presidential election.
He was sure Archie would get a kick
reading about their army buddies cast in a story about building the
Trans-Alaska Pipeline, himself cast as “Shaft Jefferson” – haha! Plus Archie had good insights, was an avid
reader, and had his own large collection of paperbacks so Sam valued his
opinion as a critic on a variety of topics he was writing about, topics Sam had
been fantasizing about for a long time.
So that’s what Sam did that day at
work, he called Archie and told him he wanted his professional literary opinion
because he had finally started writing the book he had been talking about for
so long. Archie’s reply was, “Hallelujah
man, send the shit over!”
Sam worked in Rosslyn, at a State
Department annex building, and sent the book chapters he had written so far,
including the first two about Alaska, over to Archie at the Studebaker
Institute using a beige interagency U.S. Government Messenger Envelope. Not including the chapters on Alaska, the
latter material can be paraphrased as follows:
#
The psychological cobwebs for Duke Mitchum had cleared long
ago. He stopped drinking and getting
stoned, and had climbed out of his funk.
He was a man on a mission now, and with renewed energy and vigor he read
and researched every new bit of information he could get his hands on regarding
man’s mysterious attraction to gold.
How else to become a teacher, a high priest of wisdom and impart long
lost facts on those people locked into the day to day tedium of life,
completely unaware of the world and universe around them than to embark on his
own personal crusade? His was a noble
quest, a new golden age of discovery, and the real treasure was not a yellow
metal after all - it was knowledge.
It started with an amazing discovery. Duke’s revelation after much scientific analysis was that over the eons,
the Earth’s geomagnetic field reversals occurred hundreds of times from North
Pole to South Pole and back again and that the Earth’s crustal displacement,
known as plate tectonics, was a frequent phenomenon as well.
Duke hypothesized that one such displacement many thousands of years ago
created a huge green, tropical island which through evolution ultimately
thrived with a species of modern man, superior culture, and highly advanced
scientific community.
A celestial missile entered Earth’s atmosphere as a small meteor a million
years ago. This meteor had very unique
and strange properties. It had a
malachite green color, and was covered with yellow striations, which as it
turns out were veins of pure gold. When
discovered many thousands of years later by a craftsman, he chiseled the
meteorite into precisely hewn apothecary mortar, accompanied by a pestle made
from the same rock.
There was only enough mineral material from the meteorite to craft but
one mortar and pestle however. The
craftsman worked diligently and carefully because he intended to make his
mortar and pestle a thing of beauty, and a gift to the High Priest of his
homeland.
An alchemist by training, the Priest received the gift and ascertained
that by using certain yeast ingredients and mixing them inside the mortar, the
mortar provided a constantly replenishing green, slimy, dough-like substance
smelling of yeast in great abundance that was nourishing and fit for human
consumption.
The Old Testament much, much later referred to this mortar as the Jar of
Manna. The Priest alchemist also
discovered that by combining metallic elements such as mercury, gold, and other
secret ingredients in his Jar, an elixir could be manufactured that when
swallowed considerably prolonged human life.
After that discovery and with the help of the High Priest, the ruling
classes indulged themselves drinking of the elixir and grew lazy, caring more
about themselves than about the welfare of their subjects. The wealthy craved gold more than anything
else, not because of its fabulous beauty or material value, but because it was
the main ingredient for making the elixir that allowed them to live into
perpetuity, almost forever.
The locale where the meteor fell was called Brazatlan, a glorious and
beautiful place. It still exists but the
Earth’s crust has since shifted, making the homeland cold and ugly, and no
longer able to support life. The entire
island has been covered by an ice shelf one mile thick, permanently covered in
snow, with the record for the coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth at
-129° Fahrenheit. Yet Antarctica as it
is known today is also a windy and barren desert, the driest place on
Earth.
Its ancient inhabitants were forced to leave as the enormous green and
beautiful island grew colder and colder until it was no longer habitable. Tectonic plate shifts were causing climate
change. Its diaspora migrated to two
great lands, named in honor of the homeland – one was called Brazil (BRAZ) and
one called Atlantis (ATLAN). These lands
were scouted decades ahead of time because Brazatlan scientists had warned
about the coming ice age, but no one had listened.
Finally society’s leadership took heed when it was determined that
Atlantis had far more gold than Brazatlan and Brazil combined, so the wealthy
elite, the royal ruling class, and High Priest opted to make Atlantis their new
home accompanied by a retinue of carefully selected laborers, alchemists,
scientists, physicians, scholars, and servants.
Those not chosen to emigrate to Atlantis, the less fortunate of society,
had no choice but to make the long sea voyage to Brazil, but they had heard of
the magic elixir and became envious. Like
old Brazatlan, Brazil was a lush green tropical paradise of unlimited natural
resources and magnificent waterways.
The Jar of Manna and Pestle accompanied the High Priest to Atlantis as
did the secret formula for making the Elixir of Life. Atlantis too was eventually destroyed, not by
ice, fire or explosion, but by a great flood caused by catastrophic earthquakes
and tsunamis.
There were survivors, a new diaspora, who traveled far and wide through
Central Asia, some colonizing new lands, some traveling ever eastward until
finally arriving at the cradle of antiquity’s great civilizations, those of the
Middle East.
Collapsing Earth’s age into one calendar year, Homo sapiens have been
around ten minutes from midnight on the last day of the year, ten seconds
before midnight Jesus Christ was born, and one second before midnight Columbus
discovered America. Brazatlan had only
been around two minutes, and Atlantis less than that, but nonetheless
historical counts of these places still exist - as Holy Scripture.
What remarkable history books the Old and New Testaments are! Moses is the central figure of the Old
Testament and Jesus Christ the central figure of the New Testament; Jesus is
also the nexus of these two great works.
In the Old Testament, Hebrew Bible, and New Testament, the Great Flood
refers to Noah, and what happened in subsequent generations to his lineage, a
story which parallels interestingly enough the story of Atlantis.
#
Duke Mitchum continued his research.
Adam, Methusaleh, then Noah’s was a royal family line, whose descendants
became the leadership and bluebloods of the new world they eventually settled
including Asia, China, Europe, and Africa.
Noah’s lineage begat Abraham, and Abraham’s lineage begat Moses, and David’s
his son Solomon, and Jesus. The Old
Testament says Adam, Methusaleh, and Noah lived to ancient ages: over 900 years
old! Moses was “only” 120 years old when
he died and Abraham of Mesopotamia 175 years old.
Abraham’s wife Sarah was 90 years old when Isaac was born and she lived
until 127. What if these long life spans
were not allegorical and they really did live that long? Abraham is a highly respected by the
religions of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, and their famed city of
Jerusalem became the focal point of worship of these three religions. It was Abraham who was the founding father of
the Covenant.
As Moses roamed the desert for forty years with the Israelites looking
for a new home he carried with him the Ark of the Covenant. He died on Mount Nebo, the Moab within sight
of the Promised Land and was entombed somewhere nearby, at an unknown location. The original twin tablets of the Ten
Commandments were inscribed by the finger of God, but angered by the Israelites
worshipping a false god, a golden calf, in anger Moses smashed the
tablets.
The Ark contained a copy of the Ten Commandments, the Rod of Aaron, and
the Brazatlan Jar of Manna and Pestle which provided sustenance to the
Israelites. It was the Jar of Manna and
Elixir of Life that allowed long life to many of the characters associated with
the Old Testament. It was also the Jar
that provided nourishment to the Israelites as they wondered in the desert for
forty years until they found the Promised Land.
Was the Jar of Manna also an allegory or something real, but representing
something far beyond our limited comprehension?
It wasn’t until King David that life spans began normalizing, which is
also about the time the Ark of the Covenant goes missing, including the Jar of
Manna. It was King David who God spoke
to and gave the very precise plans for building a home for the Ark of the
Covenant under King Solomon’s First Temple, from where the Ark disappears from
the scene.
It was a noble knight after the First Crusade of 1099 A.D. who
re-discovered the Jar of Manna and the Elixir of Life. He was a descendant and namesake of Roland,
Great Paladin of the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne, greatest of the medieval
kings, all these men being descendants of the
Brazatlan and Biblical bloodline of Adam and Abraham. It had been Charlemagne’s grandfather,
Charles “The Hammer” Martel, who had defeated an invading Saracen Army in 732 at
the Battle of Tours, France and saved Europe from Islamic conquest.
As King Arthur had Sir Lancelot, Charlemagne had Sir Roland of Prussia, his nephew and the knight he most trusted. Knight
Roland died in 777 fighting a holding action north of the Basque city of Pamplona,
the last remaining Christian stronghold in Spain against the Moorish
invasion. To put down a rebellion,
Charlemagne returned to Aachen and left Roland in charge to protect his flanks
as the main body of the Frankish army withdrew along the pathway to
Compostela. It was then at a mountain
pass in Roncesvalles an enemy force of Moorish soldiers ambushed Roland,
killing him and everyone in his command.
Roland’s tomb is near the same medieval pathway taken by thousands of
Christian pilgrims over subsequent centuries to pay homage to St. James the
Apostle at the far western Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela. St. James’ bones had been carried there centuries
before from Jerusalem.
Several centuries later, the descendant and namesake of Roland was born,
and baptized Rowland von Dahlgrün, who became a Knight Templar of
Jerusalem. It is in 1119 where Duke Mitchum in
later chapters picks up the story of what happened to the Jar of Manna and Elixir
of Life, a date two decades after the First Crusade, the same year the Order of
the Knights Templar was founded and von Dahlgrün journeyed on a pilgrimage to
the Holy Land.
#
Bartholomew
“Buddy” Peoples agreed entirely with Chairman Greese’s marching orders as
relayed to him by Mac Kopstein; the executive director always agreed with the
chairman no matter what he really thought, even if Mac had gone over his head. But then just a few months later
correspondence showed up at the mailroom, an interagency envelope from the U.S.
State Department – the Studebaker Institute routinely received interagency mail
from federal buildings all over Washington via couriers on a daily basis – and
its contents shook the Institute to its foundations.
Buddy was enjoying an early morning cup of hot
Starbuck’s, just relaxing and reading the Washington Post about the presidential
election results when his telephone rang.
Calling was Mac Kopstein, and Buddy could tell from the wavering tone of
his voice that something was wrong.
“Buddy, I’ve got to come up and see you, it’s really fucking urgent!” was
all he said in a panic.
The startled executive director simply replied, “Sure,
come on up,” and thought to himself, oh shit, what now. The wait gave Buddy a few extra moments to
finish off the article about how the new President-elect, Buchanan Hapgood,
promised the American people he would find a way out of the severe economic
recession gripping the country.
Mac came into his office carrying a beige “U.S. Government
Messenger Envelope” looking very worried, and placed it directly in front of
Buddy on his desk. “Take a look at
this,” he said. It was addressed to
Archibald Jefferson, the office equipment repairman, sent to him by a Sam Noble
over at the State Department. The
contents had the desired impact on Buddy that the head of SI security had hoped
to see – one of a ghostly paled face.
There were a bunch of pages stapled together of what
appeared to be, at first glance anyway, a story about Alaska. The Post-It note stuck to the front simply
said, “Archie, read this and tell me what you think,” and it was signed,
“Sam.” As Buddy skimmed through the
entire document, Mac sat patiently waiting for him to finish, and then heard
the words, “Mr. Kopstein, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“I’m afraid so. The Archie Jefferson/Cinza Brown photocopy affair
has just taken a new turn and not one for the good I can assure you. I read through the material in detail early
this morning and guess what? The author
has woven into his story a plot involving gold - gold Mr. Peoples! Clearly, this document, whatever it is, seems
to be plagiarizing or at a minimum borrowing from the information contained in
those pages of Dr. Brown’s ‘Atlantean Geodesy’ that were in the possession of
Jefferson back in June. And gold is not the only 'coincidence.'
This being fact, we no longer have
a case of a couple of carelessly discarded papers at the photocopy machine, and
all in all what we thought was no harm done – to now it appears that Jefferson
may have actually made copies of the copies and given them to this person,
what’s his name, Sam Noble. Furthermore, some of the other topics he writes
about are whacky and slightly disturbing.” Mac spoke as he re-examined the
front of the envelope for the name of the sender.
Buddy thought for a moment, “Oh fuck, can this just be
a coincidence! This guy Noble is a
friend of Jefferson’s and just sent these pages over to him out of the blue,
maybe they’re from a book he copied or travel brochure or something else.”
“Mr. Peoples, once is coincidence, twice is enemy
action.” Buddy thought his colleague was
being a little overly dramatic and to lighten the moment said, “Who’re you
quoting, J. Edgar Hoover?”
Answering without the least hint of a grin, Mac
replied, “No sir, James Bond.” Buddy
thought he was being deadpan and just kidding, but he wasn’t, he was completely
serious.
“So what do you suggest we do now?” Buddy knew he’d have to tell Chairman Greese
about this so needed a plan of action to soften the blow, and what a bone
crushing blow it would be.
“Best case scenario is that we’re looking at a leakage
of classified documents outside this building, perhaps even more damaging than
just those three pages of the ‘Geodesy’ if more were stolen. Worst case is that we have some kind of
conspiracy, although involving what, why, and who I’m not quite sure of just
yet. Suggest you let Mr. Greese know of
this new wrinkle in the Jefferson affair, while I inform the FBI,” was Mac’s
reply.
The last thing Mac wanted was to have to meet with the
chairman for another ass-chewing session so better to pass the buck to Buddy
this time. The humiliation his
department bore for the growing scandal was made even worse because of the two initially
involved – Jefferson and Brown – he’d have bet money that Brown was the leak
given his sexual proclivities by setting himself up as an easy blackmail target.
Yet Mac was told “hands off,” by the chairman and now
it looked like the chairman had been right, Brown was indeed clear of suspicion
by the looks of it. The mastermind
appeared to be this guy Sam Noble.
Meanwhile the chairman’s attention had been focused elsewhere as the
Studebaker Institute had been awarded multiple non-compete contracts by the new
presidential administration to study efficiencies in government streamlining and downsizing. As the recession
worsened, not even civil servants were being protected from job loss.
#
“Okay. Now what
do we do with these papers, which look like they were typed the old fashioned
way by this guy Noble? Incredibly, I
seem to be looking at carbon copies here splattered with dabs of white-out correction fluid!”
This thing now had a life of its own and the timing couldn’t have been
worse. Dr. Brown was working full time
on Operation GERDA, Gold Extraction and Relocation for Defense of America, and
the Studebaker Institute would have to make a presentation to the new President
Hapgood administration in a matter of months; Buddy’s department certainly
didn’t need any distractions between now and then.
Mac responded, “We photocopy Noble’s work, place the
originals back in the envelope, and send it on its merry way to the attention
of Archie Jefferson. Back at the Bureau
we used to call this technique ‘walking the dog,’ a tactic used to cast a wider
net around a conspiracy. I’ll work with
the Feds to start an immediate investigation on both Jefferson and Noble and
any other names of people identified in these pages. I already came across several names we need
to check out in the documents. We take
our time and do this right and hopefully there will be no violence.”
“You don’t really think this is about anything that
serious do you? I mean, couldn’t this be
about something that has a simple, rationale explanation?” Buddy got very nervous when the security head
mentioned the possibility of violence; it was the last thing the Institute
needed for its pristine image inside and outside the Beltway.
“You never know with these things, you just never
know. But we should have something on
Noble and others in a week of two. If
he’s working over at State, there’ll be a file on him and a background security
check made in at least the last five years; that’s a start. If you could get Mr. Greese to make a few
phone calls and get us a contact over at State, preferably someone as close to
Noble as possible – like the head of the department where he works – that would
be excellent.
That kind of person is invaluable in an investigation
like this. We should definitely sell
this leak to the Bureau guys as more than just the theft of classified
documents however; let’s package it as a matter of national security.” Mac’s brain was now working a mile a minute,
this type of work was his specialty and that’s why SI hired him.
“What difference does it make, I mean, theft or national
security – either way the Feds get involved in the investigation, don’t they?”
Kopstein was just a little piqued that someone would
dare question his expertise when it came to matters of an investigative nature,
even a former spook with NSA like Peoples.
“The difference, Buddy, is that packaging this as a case involving
national security means we get to use the U.S. Patriot Act in our favor – like
the ‘sneak and peak clause.’ As long as
the FBI doesn’t charge him with a crime, they can enter his house anytime they
like, search the place, take anything they wish without telling him, and do all
this without a search warrant or concern for his rights of privacy under the
Constitution, all very legal.”
Mac Kopstein had no sooner left his office when Buddy reluctantly
picked up the phone to explain to his boss what had happened. Zack Greese didn’t even have
the courtesy to ask him to come into his office for a face to face, so it became only a telephone
conversation.
“Mr. Greese, perhaps we should check with our legal
department about this ‘sneak and peak’ course of action Kopstein
recommended. There’s a lot of debate
right now in the Supreme Court concerning a person’s penumbra civil
rights.” Buddy explained that more and
more the Patriot Act was coming under attack, and not just by the ACLU and
usual gang of liberals. The right to
privacy was never overtly written into the U.S. Constitution or its Amendments,
nor in the Bill of Rights, but of late the Supreme Court ruled that an American
citizen’s right to privacy had as its source all the Charters of Freedom
drafted by the Founding Fathers – an overarching right.
The argument was that the Bill of Rights was not so
much a list of rights granted to individuals by the new democratic government
of 1776, but was a list of restrictions on government’s use of power – each
person had God-given inalienable rights from birth; the Charters’ main intent
was to limit the powers of the federal government from abusing the rights of
private citizens with too many rules and regulations.
“Hello Mr. Greese, are you there sir?” Buddy was wondering if the chairman had heard
a word he said or was taking some kind of old geezer medication that dulled his
senses.
“Mr. Peoples, I’ve always liked you and I think you’ve
done an excellent job here at the Studebaker Institute since we brought you
in. The election of this new Democratic
President, renewed terrorist attacks in Israel and here in the homeland, and
the economic mess this country is in, there’s an opportunity here.” Buddy had a bad feeling about where this was
going and his ass began to pucker.
“But let me explain something to you this one time, and this one time
only. Those dusty, old faded documents
stored in the National Archives have no more to do with present day and age
American politics than do the horse and buggy.
These are different times and those of us patriots paid by taxpayers to
perform important services for this country’s citizenry – working both inside
and outside government – I mean here, the real professionals who know how to
get things done in this town, we understand the difference between Chicken Shit
and Chicken Little. Like Billy Shakespeare
once wrote, ‘No beast so fierce but knows
some touch of pity, but I know none, therefore am no beast.' Hell boy, I’ve been to the fucking rodeo!”
Buddy knew this was code-talk of some kind but damned if he knew what
the ancient one was telling him. He
paused, waiting for an epiphany to strike him and when it hadn’t come after a
few moments, braved another query and meekly asked, “I’m dreadfully sorry Mr.
Greese, but I’m not quite sure what that means sir. Could you please be a little clearer?”
“Stop with your caterwauling! You’ll do exactly what Mr. Kopstein tells you to
do. Fuck the U.S. Constitution! Is that clear enough for you!” The matter was now closed for further
discussion and the telephone conversation had almost concluded. Buddy felt humiliated by the great one.
“Crystal sir,” was his beat-down weak reply as the call now ended. From
that moment onward, Peoples was solely responsible for the now wider Archie Jefferson/Sam
Noble affair and it was the executive director’s ass on the firing line if
something went wrong.
#
Larry Atwood came down to breakfast wearing his
flashiest high-powered-young-executive outfit – a dark blue pinstriped Brooks
Brothers wool nested suit, a light pink shirt with white cuffs and white
collar, a bright yellow silk tie, a matching yellow silk handkerchief folded
neatly and stuffed in the upper left pocket of his jacket, and shiny black
tasseled-shoes. On his Gucci black
leather belt he wore his old-school pager and BlackBerry, gunslinger style over
each hip, and on his lapel was pinned a small American flag which matched the
motif of his cufflinks.
Around his left wrist he wore a knock-off gold Rolex
watch, and he placed on the small table in the foyer as he descended the stairs
his faux Louis Vuitton briefcase. Larry was
impeccably coiffed, perfumed, and manicured; this Bureaucrat-Samurai was quite
sure he looked awesome.
Naomi always selected the ensembles for him during
special occasions, and made sure he dressed for success – she knew down deep
that her husband was a spineless wimp and she was the real head of the family,
but her mother pressured her into marrying the older she got – heaven forbid
the family had a spinster – so although Larry had no balls, he was better than
nothing.
After Larry pecked his wife on the cheek, and stared a
little too long through the kitchen window outside at the little kids all
bundled up and waiting in line for the school bus, he sat down to a scrumptious
breakfast of ham and eggs prepared by his darling wife. She was used to her husband’s wistful stares
at school children, no doubt longing to be young again and free of the
stressful job responsibilities we all had as adults.
Breakfast together for the couple was a rarity, as was
eating something other than a cereal bar and having a glass of OJ, since both
were professionals and had little time for idle morning chitchat. Larry had a high level job, albeit a
political appointment, at the State Department but Naomi’s was even higher –
she was the youngest division head at the Department of Homeland Security in the
Senior Executive Service of the federal government, as high as you go in the
civil service.
Together the power couple pulled down over a
quarter-million dollars a year in government salaries, and so could easily
afford their comfortable townhouse in West Falls Church. Still in their late thirties, they could even
decide to start a family if they so decided and could easily afford it, but
Naomi Tyson-Atwood’s frigidity made this possibility increasing unlikely with
each passing year.
But this crisp November morning a few days before the
Thanksgiving holidays wasn’t about Naomi, it was about Larry. Unbelievably he was actually called by Deputy
Secretary Dumbarton Clounwissel personally and summoned to the seventh floor of
the Truman building for an important one-on-one meeting with the number-two man
at the State Department the day before, and told he had been handpicked from
the chorus line to help with a delicate matter involving one of his underlings.
Details would be revealed to him in due course but for
now he was to show up the following day at the offices of the prestigious
Studebaker Institute on Massachusetts Avenue in the District at 9:00 a.m.
sharp. He had told his soul mate the
wonderful news right away and so now both were giddy with excitement about the
possibilities of career advancement – in public or private sector – an
association with the Studebaker might have in store for both of them. Regardless of what they wanted of him, Larry
was bound and determined to give it his all, no questions asked.
#
By 7:00 a.m. both Buddy Peoples and Mac Kopstein were
already at work lounging in SI’s executive conference room sipping coffee and
studying various photographs, files, and reports. They were also inspecting very carefully the
contents of two more interagency envelopes delivered to Archie Jefferson since
the first one had arrived earlier in the month, likewise sent by one Mr. Samuel
Lee Noble.
They were
expecting a Mr. Larry Atwood from State to show up in a couple of hours and
were reviewing one last time all the extensive material gathered by Kopstein
and the FBI investigators during the past few weeks. The new information revealed further
disturbing facts that caused yet another stress furrow on the increasingly
crowded brow of Studebaker’s executive director.
“And this photo here, looks like a beat up M-16 of Vietnam
War vintage,” Buddy said. “Correct. Two FBI agents visited the Noble residence in
Vienna and took these pictures, but confiscated nothing and withdrew unseen by
neighbors. They were disguised as TV
cable repairmen. What you’re looking at
is actually an old Armalite model A-16A1 with fully automatic select switch,
circa 1965. You can still buy knockoffs
of that weapon today but the automatic versions are against the law.
This one’s an original and Noble keeps it under his
bed wrapped in that blue towel it’s laying on, loaded with a magazine of 5.56
mm full-metal-jacket military rounds.
The safety was on, though. On the
upper shelf of his closet they found two more full magazines and a box of 100
rounds of ammo. Naturally, the agents
put everything exactly back in place after taking these pictures.”
Naturally. This
information in of itself that Mac showed him didn’t really disturb Buddy;
almost every American household had at least one firearm and as Mac went on to
explain, Noble had been stationed in Vietnam for two years so this looked to be
one of the many souvenir weapons swiped by soldiers and still out there in
circulation. It was easy to send things
back home from Nam using APO mail in the early years of the war, including
disassembled M-16s and Army Colt 45s. Weapons
going back to the Civil War still appeared at gun shows from Nashville to
Jacksonville and all wars since, so this M-16 was a relatively recent war-vintage
weapon.
“Small world,” Peoples thought to himself, “we’re
sitting here talking about someone we’re worried about screwing up our new
project to earn us megabucks and he owns a weapon the Institute probably made
$60 or so on, royalties and commissions included, forty-some years ago. What did Cinza call such an irony – six
degrees of separation?”
“You said Noble was considered an expert marksman by
army standards, and both he and Archie Jefferson won Bronze Stars, so both men
back in the day were bad dudes to screw with.
Do you think they’re still dangerous?”
Peoples was fishing for something, anything, to assuage his fears and prevent
the need for him having to give the chairman any more bad news about this
growing crisis.
“Again, taken in isolation, no. But one must begin looking at the total
mosaic to see how the pieces fit, and then ask the question – are these two men
dangerous, and will they present problems to the Studebaker Institute hindering
our completion and execution of Operation GERDA? That said it’s too soon to say for sure just
how serious a problem we have here, although I’m pretty sure any potential
problem is contained if we keep our attention focused on these two
gentlemen.
We don’t know for sure if Noble has even broken any
laws other than having that automatic-fire weapon; he might be guilty by
association because he happens to be a friend and possibly accomplice of
Jefferson who likely violated federal law, stealing classified information. No, let me rephrase that, he did break federal
law.
We need to keep doing what we’re doing – monitoring
the comings and goings of these two, check regular snail mail, electronic mail,
bank accounts, library records, credit card records, tap telephones, and so
forth. So far, these two jokers appear
to be living very frugal, lower-middleclass lives with very little in the way of
savings, assets, or net worth,” Mac concluded.
#
Peoples then queried, “The photos here of books in boxes
taken in Jefferson’s apartment, what do they show?”
Mac responded that apparently, during Jefferson’s
extensive period of painful recuperation suffered from his car accident of 1965
– two years in VA hospitals and another five years of periodic visits for
therapy – the cripple went through some kind of religious re-awakening and
searched for spiritual guidance, finally settling on the Black Muslims but then
left that order over disagreement over its violent philosophies. This tidbit never came up when his Studebaker
Institute background check was done four years ago. He had since not been involved in any
organized religions, but apparently still kept the many books for no apparent
reason.
“Not good,” was Buddy’s take on this. “Is there any possible connection to
Al-Qaeda? Could Jefferson and Noble
belong to some weird fat-old-guy terrorist cell here in Washington?” His own question sounded so preposterous he
couldn’t help from laughing.
Kopstein shook his head from side to side but didn’t
even crack a smile. “I don’t see having
books on different religions as threatening per se. Now, had we found newer literature in Arabic,
radical-sounding stuff I’d be worried, but his was very dated material we found
on not only Islam but on all major religions.
My opinion, it’s a dead end.”
“Anything in what you’ve looked at so far regarding
financials, any major monetary deposits, withdrawals, big purchases, or
purchase of international-travel airline tickets. Do they have valid passports?” Buddy was thinking that if they did try to
pull anything, these two would want to leave town in a hurry and get overseas
somewhere.
“I hear where you’re going Buddy. Like I said before, no major financial
transactions; these two guys are barely getting by. We also investigated their tourist passport
utilization over the last five years with Homeland Security and all we saw were
three visits to Brazil by Noble’s foreign-born, naturalized American wife,
maiden name Nilza Aparecida Vasconcelos, and only one by Noble. Jefferson has no passport.
The final destination for both Nobles was a small village
in the state of Rondônia, way the hell in the middle of nowhere, by the name of
Campo Dourado. It looks like a real third-world
poverty-stricken shithole. It’s where
his mixed-race wife was born and for some God-knows-why reason, Noble married
this Pocahontas.” Mac shook his head
from side to side with a look of disgust showing up in his pressed lips. “Apparently Noble likes to fish whenever he
goes to Brazil so travels by bus a long way southeast to a God-forsaken region
of western Brazil called the Pantanal.”
“His personnel jacket said they had only one child, a
little girl named Sarah Inocência Noble, who was kidnapped back in 1976 and
never found again; she was only three years old at the time. Apparently Noble went ape shit and had to
take time off from work to go down to Brazil for rest and recuperation… what’s
the place called again,” Buddy reached
for a piece of paper he had just discarded, “Campo Dourado?”
“That’s correct, and from then on his career
stagnated, his performance reviews on the job thereafter were very mediocre,
and he became increasingly introverted if not sociopathic altogether. Still, he retained his ‘Government Authorized’
clearance at State and black diplomat passport because of his international
courier duties,” Mac pointed out.
“There is another item red-flagged in his jacket and
if I wasn’t already familiar with this subject from my early days with NSA I’d
really be worried. And please do me a
favor Mac, keep this strictly between us because if the chairman saw the file,
honest to God he’d immediately take out a contract on both these guys for
termination with extreme prejudice.”
Buddy was only half kidding but his nervous laugh did
not remove the disconcerting look Mac gave him after he uttered his
remarks. A lot of urban legend
surrounded Chairman Greese and his tenacity in protecting his turf when
cornered.
#
Buddy was referring to an
investigation conducted by CIA, FBI, and NSA in 1983 because of the defection
of a Central Intelligence Agency spy to the Soviet Union, the only time that
has ever happened in the history of the CIA.
Howard Grant Edwards was a highly
educated and trained agent with a very promising career still in front of him
when he was picked for a plum assignment in the heart of the Communist world –
Moscow. Something happened, although a
mystery still surrounded the exact events leading up to his defection – but
speculation as to the reasons had involved drugs, money, and treason.
At the time, it was as if someone
had dropped a bomb on Langley and everyone who had the remotest contact with
Edwards during his entire life up to his defection was interviewed and
investigated. This included Noble,
Jefferson, and a whole slew of their Vietnam buddies since Edwards had been
stationed in Nam for an army tour with the same Company F. Edwards and Noble had been good friends while
serving.
There had been only two contacts
between the war comrades since: in late
1971 when Edwards, Noble, Jefferson, and a Mr. Pedro Campana traveled together
to Wisconsin by van to see a football game which they never made for some
reason; and the last contact Noble had with Edwards, a brief encounter on “M”
Street in Georgetown for drinks in 1982.
The Bureau had done an incredibly detailed and extensive investigation
on all these players to see if there was any connection to Edwards’ defection
and came up with bupkis. Noble kept his
State Department clearance.
“I concur with you Mr. Peoples, other than being a
very odd connection, I’m sure this is a dead end, but I’ll have the Feds double
check just in case. We’ll also look into
the background of Noble’s wife in more detail; could be she once had ties to
some radical left-wing guerrilla group in Brazil. So, since Mr. Atwood will be arriving shortly,
may I summarize?”
“By all means Mr. Kopstein, please do.” Buddy was returning the courtesy of being
called “mister.”
“Well, we have here two elderly war veterans, decorated
I might add. We find three classified
documents, two legible, in a cafeteria trash receptacle discarded by
Jefferson. He has committed a federal
offense by having them in his possession, regardless of how he obtained them –
and we’re still not sure how he obtained them.
I must agree at this point with Chairman Greese, however, I think we can
take Dr. Cinza Brown off the hook.”
“Thank God Mac, please continue.” Buddy was relieved that at least his key guy
for getting Operation GERDA finalized appeared to be in the clear, so now he
had to contain the problem and focus on these two old nut jobs. This meant that he could also share all the
chapters so far received of Noble’s manifesto and the rest of the investigation
files with Cinza and bring him up to snuff on what was going on.
That alone should allow Cinza to breathe a sigh of
relief and let him know he was no longer under suspicion – Cinza instinctively
felt he was in hot water for something but didn’t know exactly what, other than
possibly the rejection of his “Geodesy” white paper; he had to focus on GERDA,
we’re heading into the fourth quarter and we need a score desperately.
Mac continued, “The complications stem not from any
one thing, but from all these little bits and pieces taken together. I mean we have theft of classified
information, an illegal automatic weapon with ammo, the Black Panthers, a
traitorous ex-spook, and 100 pages of a bizarre manifesto written by Noble all
wrapped up in one package. And gold
seems to be the common thread throughout all the bullshit.
Noble’s writing appears disjointed and twisted, very
unprofessionally written, and wanders between fact and fiction. I used my best FBI contact, John Radwell whose
trust is beyond reproach, to conduct a forensic analysis of all documents and
he told me many of the dates, characters, and timelines in Noble’s book contradict conventional thinking – it’s as if he’s decided to re-invent history.
Noble’s obviously woven into his disturbed prattle his
army buddies as fictional characters in his first chapter about Alaska, all
except Howard Edwards, but there’s one individual by the name of Duke Mitchum
who is a complete puzzle. Only one
individual from Noble’s circle of friends, a Pedro Campana, actually worked on
the Alaska pipeline, but the rest of the story is pure fiction. We haven’t been able to connect Campana to
anything yet, and Mitchum, like I said, is a mystery.
Mitchum could be an alias for Edwards, but the real
Edwards died after the collapse of the old Soviet Union in an ‘accidental
death’ from falling down the stairs at his Dacha. Perhaps the Mitchum character pays homage to
Edwards, or is a real person yet still unknown link, a person we know nothing
about.
We’ve got an APB out on Mitchum in every FBI field
office in the country, and we’ve asked Interpol for help to look for him in the
rest of the world. If Mitchum is still
alive, we’ll find him – it’s just a question of time. We need to know if he’s also part of a possible
terrorist cell. I think we can agree
that neither one of us knows where Noble’s going with his manifesto nor why the
hell he’s writing it in the first place.”
Actually, Mac had been wrong. He had not read the first chapter in enough detail
and just skimmed over it. Howie Edwards
was indeed mentioned briefly, just in passing but Mac wanted to cling to his
conspiracy theory no matter what.
“How the hell could he ever explain this mess to
Chairman Greese,” Buddy thought.
Nervously nodding his head up and down, Buddy concurred with this
analysis and Mac continued.
“Noble owns a high-powered military rifle with lots of
ammo and old or not, it’s still one of the most lethal assault rifles on the
planet. We need to remember that. And Mr. Noble is an expert marksman. To me, these are the most disturbing facts. He could go postal any day.
The Black Muslim connection Jefferson had long ago and
like I already said is a dead end, and the Howard Edwards’ defection incident I
see as a coincidence that begs turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy and so
my take on it is that these two subjects are red herring incidents. Like I said, I’ll get some field agents to
review the file on Edwards once again, but we need to stay focused on Noble –
he’s the key here.”
“So you think that if there is a conspiracy, it’s
probably a conspiracy of just two people – Jefferson and Noble?”
“That’s correct Buddy, or possibly in conjunction with
Mitchum who could be their handler or a cut-out acting on behalf of some other
hostile player.”
Right on cue, at that moment the credenza phone rang
and the receptionist informed Buddy that Mr. Larry Atwood had just arrived and
was being cleared by security and accompanied up to the fourth floor. As Buddy Peoples waited for the visitor from
the State Department to arrive, he browsed nonchalantly through a bunch of 8
inch by 10 inch high-resolution color photos strewn about over the table, taken
inside Noble’s home.
They appeared to show some kind of tiny den, but there
wasn’t any home-computer in sight. In
one close-up photo next to an old-fashioned typewriter there were four stacks
of papers about a foot high, and sitting on top of each stack were what
appeared to be long metal paperweights shaped like a bowtie.
#
Buddy disliked Larry Atwood right off the bat, only
moments after he entered the conference room where he and Mac Kopstein were
sitting, a room whose table had been reorganized so that photos and other
documents relating to the case were all in one pile sitting very neatly under
the left elbow of the security head.
The executive director of Studebaker Institute, who
believed in intuition and first impressions, sized Atwood up as being an arrogant,
vain, overly ambitious, anal retentive, two-faced, stupid, dickless peacock –
in other words, he was perfect. This Judas
Iscariot would sell out his own grandmother for thirty pieces of silver.
Atwood would be SI’s mole at the State Department to
not only keep an eye on Noble, but for sure would be useful in helping to
acquire upcoming federal contracts and grants in the months and years
ahead. Atwood was obviously a legend in
his own mind.
Chairman Greese would no doubt like to hear Peoples’
assessment so that he could put in a good word for this piss-ant at high levels
of State and get him promoted – the higher in the organization moles like him
were promoted to, the more useful they became to Studebaker, and there were
many positioned inside the deep state apparatus all around the nation’s capital.
After perfunctory handshakes and salutations all
around, it was Atwood who went right to work first. “First of all, gentlemen, let me say what a
thrill and honor it is to be inside this historic and venerated
establishment.
The Studebaker Institute is to think-tanking and
Beltway consulting as to what Harvard University is to higher education, and
your chairman is absolutely nonpareil in the annals of American industry, right
up there with the likes of Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller,
and Lee Iacocca! This esteemed
institution has been at the cutting edge of every major federal project since
Mr. Greese founded the Institute and it is indeed a great pleasure for me to be
here this morning……”
“Jesus Christ Almighty, what’d he do, write an
acceptance speech in the car on the way over,” Buddy thought to himself and
decided to cut this screwball off at the knees.
“Mr. Atwood, excuse me for interrupting sir, and let
me say on behalf of the Studebaker Institute we’re glad having you with us this
morning, but I’m sure you’re as busy as we are so let’s plow right in, shall
we?”
“Yes, by all means.
I was instructed by the Deputy Secretary it was a matter of extreme
importance requiring the utmost discretion, secrecy, and tact, and I can assure
you that I intend to do my best and……”
“Thank you, thank you Larry. May I call you Larry?” Buddy queried.
“By all means, Mr. Peoples.” Atwood was half hoping his hosts would
reciprocate but they remained Mr. Peoples and Mr. Kopstein throughout the
entire meeting. He had finally focused
on the matter at hand and had his cute little three-ring binder open, ready to
take notes with his red-lacquered, gold-trimmed Montblanc fountain pen.
“Well Larry, we have a situation that is going to call
for someone of very high intelligence, someone with street smarts, a team
player, and ultimately a patriot. I’m
not exaggerating; the very future of our beloved country is at stake and we
must be vigilant and brave, to ensure the next generation and the one after
that, of our righteous citizenry, lives in a republic preserved and protected
by its heroic sons, be they military or civilian employees of our
democratically elected government.
To do anything less would damn us through all eternity
and all the great men who have preceded us, who have made sacrifices indeed
with their life’s blood, would haunt our souls forever.” Buddy was sure he saw tears swell up in
Atwood’s eyes. Then he blubbered, “Sure,
you can count on me, I’d give my life for this country.”
“Thank you sir, I recognized a fellow patriot the
second you walked through that door.”
Buddy pointed his finger in the direction of the double doors to the
conference room, behind the head of Mac who sat motionless, stoic, not
breathing a word or making the slightest facial gesture.
“Again, this conversation must remain completely
confidential; you may speak with no one about what I’m going to tell you, and
that includes pillow talk with your better half, comprende?” While with NSA, Buddy had done some work
hunting down narcotraficantes in Colombia so spoke passable Español. He had done such a good job that his next
assignment was a promotion to head the super-secret unit responsible for spying
on American citizens – long before 9/11.
Both the NSA and FBI had been doing so since the Korean War.
“Understood Mr. Peoples.” Not like that would be a problem, as soon as
Naomi’s head hit the pillow she was out like a light.
#
“We have reason to believe… no, let me rephrase that,
we are absolutely positive that one of your department’s employees over there
in Rosslyn is involved in a conspiracy to discredit this fine institution and
in so doing, betray the trust you and the State Department have placed in
him. He’s also betraying the oath he
took to preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States of
America.” Buddy knew he was stretching
here, he really didn’t know what kind of oath those jokers over at State took,
nor did he really care.
“Oh my dear God, not in my department!” Atwood burst out, suddenly growing deathly
pale then added in the next breath, “Sir, I can assure you that I know nothing
of this matter, and if you think I had anything to do with this……”
“No, no, no Larry, your integrity
is beyond question, what we want you to do is keep an eye on an individual in
your department and tell us everything you know about him, help us open him up
like a can of peaches and peak inside his psyche. We want to know what makes him tick. Who better to do that than someone with your
obvious gifts of keen insight and superb interpersonal skills.” As Atwood calmed down and he saw his words
had the desired effect, Buddy continued.
“The traitor’s name is Samuel Lee Noble, and he
reports to someone below you by the name of Kurt Ulric Rowan, who we are quite
sure has nothing to do with our problem.
We need your help with Noble.”
“Son of a bitch, I knew it, this guy Noble is a
troublemaker from way back, a real hayseed of a retard!” Atwood couldn’t control himself; this was an
affirmation that he had read Noble correctly all along and told his superiors
in writing that this slack-jawed yokel from the sticks of Kentucky was a real
loser, but no one listened. Well, now
they’re listening and no doubt that’s why the number-two-man at State sent him
over here.
“Absolutely Larry, and we here at Studebaker couldn’t
agree with that razor sharp and eloquent assessment you just made any more
vehemently. The chairman is always on
the lookout for people who fit the SI mold and I’ll be sure to let him know
exactly what I think of you. What can
you tell us about Noble?”
“Sam Noble is a sick bastard, if you’ll excuse my
French. Personally, I diagnosed him as
suffering from ADD, more than likely bipolar, with some paranoid schizophrenia
thrown in.” Larry was happy he took that
psychology course his junior year at Southern Illinois University; you just
never knew when a college education would come in handy.
“Piercing insight Larry! I was wondering if you could provide any specific
examples?” Atwood told his hosts the
story about him mocking Homeland Security’s threat alert system, the insult to
his wife’s nipples, his lack of concentration, insulting jokes on religion,
frequent profanity, his poor work habits and performance, and his callousness
to minorities and underprivileged in society.
He went back and dredged up the psychological problems Noble had
thirty-two years previously when he flipped his lid, and how he had survived at
State on essentially welfare and handouts because no one wanted to fire him out
of pity.
He was closest to his boss, Kurt Rowan, he heard them
talk about golf, and he knew that Rowan watched his back. But no, he didn’t recall seeing or hearing
anything that could be construed as traitorous activities. No Aryan Nation ties he was aware of, ties to
splinter groups, Al-Qaeda, or anything of that nature. The only positive thing he could say about
Noble was that he was the first one at work in the morning and made coffee for
the office.
After a pause, Atwood asked, “Do you think he belongs
to some kind of terrorist cell within the State Department or is that a mute
point?”
“Fucking ignoramus, the correct word is moot,” Buddy
mused silently. “We pray not Larry. We’re going to arrange it so that you can
read everything Noble has on his computer in your own office, but you must do
so only when you’re alone so nobody finds out.”
Buddy knew he was breaking the law but if anything happened, this bozo
in front of him, with his keen command of the English grammar, would take the
fall.
“Mr. Peoples, Noble’s almost computer illiterate. He barely knows how to send and receive
emails, but Microsoft Word, Excel, and the rest – forget it. We have to get him clerical help for almost
everything, every project he works on.
And he’s a lousy dresser. I mean
he still wears leisure suits for Christ’s sake!”
“Okay Larry, just do the best you can. That also applies to his regular mail and
what not, which you’ll get first and will have to open. Now this will take some skill opening and
re-closing sealed envelopes but if my hunch is correct, you’re the kind of guy
that’s had some field training in special ops.”
“Actually, I have Mr. Peoples. Just last year I went on a wellness retreat
in upstate New York sponsored by the U.S. State Department, and I met many
course participants from other federal agencies, up and comers like me. We were taught cliff scaling, rafting, run
and carry techniques for injured colleagues fleeing burning buildings, and
first aid. There were a lot of
teambuilding exercises involved in finding our way out of mazes and the like –
I was the team captain, and our team placed second out of four teams after the
two-week course concluded.”
“And you probably held hands and sang kumbaya the
whole time, you fuckin’ nutsack,” Buddy thought as he hummed to himself the
song Secret Agent Man from the old TV
show.
“…… and then I had to learn how to make fire by
rubbing two pieces of wood together in the event I got lost in the woods at
night to keep warm and cook wild game and fish…”
“Gotcha Larry, well done. You’re our man, no question about it. Mac, do you have any other questions for Mr.
Atwood here?” Kopstein shook his head in
the negative, nauseated at the spectacle before him, as if uttering any sound at
all would have made him vomit.
“Mr. Kopstein will see you to the elevators and take
you down to the ground floor, and escort you out of the building. Please be sure to leave your guest ID pass at
the reception desk and thanks for coming.
Mac will be your contact and will provide you with instructions on how
to contact him; please follow these instruction to the tee and do not contact
anyone else here at Studebaker for any reason whatsoever, especially me; if you
see one of us on the street, do not make eye contact or appear to know us, is
all this clear Larry?”
Buddy was finished with Mr. Atwood and wanted him gone
from the building. He sensed his
usefulness would be minimal, and as it turned out he was half-right, but at
least now he had all his bases covered.
As events showed later, Atwood would get what was coming to him in the
end.
After the two men shook hands and
Atwood began his goodbye speech, “I just want to thank you very, very much Mr.
Peoples for placing this enormous trust in me and I can assure you……”
Buddy had already turned his back
on Larry and was heading out the conference room thinking, “Yessiree Bob, those
obsequious bastards over at State sure don’t need a compass to know which way the wind blows!”
(This is a work of fiction. Although some real-world names,
organizations, historical settings, and situations are used to enhance the
authenticity of the story, any similarities to actual persons, organizations,
or situations are coincidental and all portrayals are purely the product of the
author’s imagination. This is the second
edition abridged version 2019. First
edition Copyright © 2006. All
rights reserved)
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