by James Grady
“Threw their first getting to know how e-punches back in 2007. Hit the former Soviet Union satellite, now wants to be free from Mother Russia country of Estonia with cyber hacks and attacks. Hit their Parliament, media, banks, Internet providers.
“Iran cyber attacked us in 2011, the Russians leveled up in June, 2014. The ‘Trolls From Ogino.’ Kremlebots. Officially the Internet Research Agency. Your FBI missed it a’coming, but kremlebots and their parallel cadres keep getting bigger and ‘better’ and nastier.
“Dezinformatsiya—disinformation. Call it deza—actual fake news. Not ‘Go Russia!’ propaganda, but flooding Americans’ consciousness with lies credited to a fake source so all sounds plausible. Or even just ‘people are saying’ or ‘everyone knows’ or ‘there’s just no question that.’ Half-lies and twists, omitted or non-facts. Escalated that data flooding with hacks that co-opted our own First Amendment with disclosures designed not to reveal truths but to smear it into deza.
“All of it’s part of the biggest ever in history use of classic Russian aktivniye meropriyatiya—Active Measures. Don’t outright oppose or attack your enemy: make them fall apart by disrupting them internally. Generate distrust. Anger. Blind and thus stupid rage. Capitalize on and compound cynicism or bigotry and ignorance that’s already there. Get your enemy fighting amongst themselves, citizen vs. citizen. ‘Oh, yeah?’ vs ‘Un-unh.’ Pour hate and fear like gas amidst your enemies and let them light the matches.”
Rick shook his head NO: “Like you said, this is ‘in history.’ Active Measures have been around a long time under other names. Hell, Condor: we did them in Vietnam and Chile and other places when you were probably just starting out at whatever spy game you say you run. Britain had a whole covert influence campaign run out of some building in New York to get America to come in to World War II on their side—we would have anyway, but.”
“But,” said Condor. “That was then and this is now, where but creates an overwhelming new universe because of the Internet. Everybody’s connected. Everybody’s reachable. Everybody’s a but and it’s all online, all the time. Facebook and all the social media. Websites pop up in your e-mail from a name you don’t really know—and then you forward or pass on that connection to real people who you do know, so your credibility sells their lies.
“The Russians have troll farms the size of Detroit factories with armies of keyboarding techs flooding US social media sites and cyber streets with provokatsiya—provocation. They’re doing Madison Avenue proud.
“Hell, the supposedly best minds and best paid bodies of us have been selling lies and scams and shams for dollars to regular Americans ever since the first newspaper full of ads rolled off the presses and the first county fair carnival barker stepped on stage. Now it’s hard to tell the sales pitches from programming we haven’t turned off since the first radio clicked on.
“You can’t go into a gas station or convenience store in America without hearing the drone of some TV all talk all the time and of course, that’s all true. You can’t go to the grocery store without seeing newspaper tabloid headlines with absurd OMG reports and celebrity gossip. Now those ‘I Married A Gill Man’ tabloids sell a political twist from whoever the publisher is.
“The Nazis’ Joseph Goebbels back in World War II called it ‘The Big Lie.’ If you shout it loud enough and long enough and everywhere all the time, even if people don’t believe the details, the roar numbs their brains and shapes what else they hear and see. All that plus dumbed-down education designed only to get kids a drone job plus our obsession with mirrors plus celebrity worship turned Americans into the perfect target to get hit with Active Measures via the Internet that defines the multiverse version we call the way things are.”
“So what?” said Rick as they drifted closer to the start of the cobblestone walkway that sloped in front of the Wall, that black mirror that honors 58,318 killed in the Vietnam War, Americans as names, not statistics, a memorial that initially officially horrified and outraged flag-waving conservatives. “Why have you dragged me out here on a sunny day? Put me on a line where everything I’ve pledge my life to is in jeopardy because this walk is some do or die secret? Hit me with some ‘recruiting pitch’ that’s a classic counter-intelligence red flag?”
Neither man looked behind them.
Condor stopped in front of a black mirror wall panel.
Faced his own reflection amidst line after line after line of names who never got to be as old as he was that sunny afternoon.
The old man trailed his fingers over a name carved in black mirror stone.
Whispered: “Hey, Mike.”
Walked on.
Waited until they were off the path and away from the Wall to answer Rick.
“The Russians leveled up the black e-ops they’ve been doing, then leveled up again and again. They think for Russia and its billionaires to rise, America and our middle class have to crash or fall apart, become jokes, suckers, and slaves to some new multiverse. They’re attacking our democracy at a level and with power this multiverse has never seen. They aren’t primarily targeting the government. They get that in America, government is at least nominally of the people and by the people. So that’s who the Russians are really attacking now: the people, Americans as free individuals, us.
“Even your Bureau knows that,” Condor told Rick as the drifted through the trees alongside the Mall. “The Russian Active Measures, the deza, the Facebook and Internet campaigns: At first they worked willy-nilly, whatever chaos they could cause. They backed whatever home-grown disruptions and disrupters were doing, didn’t matter if the politics were Left or Right, whacko or Me Me Me.
“This February, your colleagues in the Justice Department found out that Russian spy executives ordered their trolls on social media to ‘use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest except Sanders and Trump’. The Russians support those two because they’re the biggest disrupters out there in American politics, no matter what they believe or push. The trolls hacked the Democrats and the Republicans. They created fake deza Twitter accounts like @TEN_GOP that has 100,000 duped followers, attacked guys like John McCain. They ran online ads like: ‘You know, a great number of black people support us saying that #HillaryClintonIsNotMyPresident’ and ‘#Hillary4Prison.’ Doesn’t matter that she’s got her own real problems and what looks like a hollow high school campaign approach to politics. The trolls’ chaos multiplies errors and drives everybody crazy, suspicious, pissed off so they walk away from being good, conscientious, sort of free citizens.”
Condor shook his head: “All that puts the FBI and our whole government in a lose-lose gunfight. By law and by conscience, they can’t come in and fuck with an election, come down or appear to come down attacking one partisan side or supporting the other—even though as they keep digging to fight crime and find truth, besides the biggest threat Russians, they’re gonna also find a couple Arab Oil Empires and drug cartels’ attacks and big dollars.
“Plus,” he said.
“Plus what?”
“Plus too many people believe that stupid cliché that ‘My enemy’s enemy is my friend.’ No: your enemy’s enemy is who he is and he’s out for himself. We keep forgetting that. Some people in politics reach out to get any help they can, the hell with what it costs or who it comes from, winning is everything. Winning is where and when all the goodies flow. And corrupt people are easy to corrupt further and fool.
“So there are a lot of lines that have been crossed that might equal collusion and corruption, maybe even treason—if you guys chase and get the evidence.”
FBI Special Agent Rick frowned: “If the people who benefitted the most from Russia’s Active Measures, who maybe crossed the lines into corruption—where some of them already were, I know things about both of the big teams—if what happens is bolstered by foreign spies bad guys take charge of our government, no matter how moral they want to be, self-pre
servation is the first rule of Jungleland. That means being in the Bureau, carrying any badge or wearing any sworn-to-protect-America uniform, anybody trying to follow the law and the evidence under the command of and with their new legally sworn in bosses … All that could get real sticky.”
“Y’a think?” Condor shook his head. “Let’s just hope that the sticky is sweat and tears, no blood.”
Paused, said: “No more blood.”
Told Rick: “But they will come after you. After the crime hunters in the Bureau.”
“Who they?” said the FBI Agent.
“Yeah,” said Condor.
They walked on without answers.
Condor told Rick: “That’s why we need you as an aware Actor in place. Not only do you have to fight against all that we can’t see now, you have to keep the system working strong so whatever fight other bad guys Ops the V needs to do won’t get blocked by the Russians.”
“If I had more about what the Russians have going on, I’d be more likely to believe you.”
Condor turned to face Rick—
—and probably scan to be sure no one is close behind me, thought Rick.
“There’s a secret FBI Op about that now, a human target chase. Nobody at your level knows about it. Hell, because of what we’ve been talking about, the Bureau’s keeping this secret from damn near everybody.”
Rick said: “Except you.”
“Well,” said Condor, “we are the V.”
And suddenly Rick knew that was true. Knew he’d stepped over some line.
Condor said: “The codename for your Bureau’s Op is Crossfire Hurricane.”
“What?”
“Crossfire Hurricane,” said Condor. “That’s a lyric from a song by the Rolling Stones.”
“You are fucking shitting me! The FBI—my Bureau, fucking J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, adopting a codename from the fucking Rolling Stones!”
Condor smiled: “There isn’t a fiction author out there who could make that up.”
Rick shook his head.
“Plus there’s a dossier,” said Condor. “Ex-spies. Brits. Our guys.”
“So I’ve heard,” said Rick.
“I don’t know what’s in it,” said Condor. “There may or may not be what we used to call ‘a smoking gun’ proving Russia’s Active Measures stepping over the line into an act of war. Could be proof of compromise or corruption equaling treason. But if the dossier is real, it’ll be like most of ‘the take’ in spy games: facts and Sherlock Holmes deductions and maybe’s and sources who, all of which requires faith, a gut check, trust in what history’s taught us, what we know about people’s souls, know about the bloody hands and black hearts of nations.”
“The election is long from over,” said Rick.
“But the politics have already been re-shaped. America’s been changed forever. Is still being changed, but not by the forces of democracy or truth, justice, and the American way.”
Condor smiled: “Your boys and their superheroes know more about what’s what than many ‘official political experts’ who get all the press and the big bucks TV contracts.”
“Not enough,” whispered Rick. “All that—all this is not enough.”
They’d circled back. Stood between the Reflecting Pool and the levels of stairs leading up to the Lincoln Memorial. They stood in the sunshine of that Friday afternoon where anyone could see them but never really know.
“Why now? Why me? Why all this? Just fucking WHY?”
“Because the Russians just leveled up again and went to wet work.”
FBI Special Agent Rick Applegate stared at the man he’d just met, put street cop in his tone: “You telling me—a sworn lawman with a badge and gun—that there’ve been violent criminal incidents on US soil? In FBI jurisdiction?”
“Yes. But the bad guys lost. So far. That’s all you need to know—for now.”
Rick shook his head and his anger came out.
“Who the hell are you—really?” said Rick. “What’s your legal authority and chain of command? Accountability, checks and balances?”
“That’s there,” said Condor. “And you’ll see it when. But it comes down to each of us in the V. To you. And that’s who we really are: you.
“This is life,” he said. “You need to trust. Maybe you trust what you can see, what you can touch—but where did it come from and what is it at its core? So you choose to trust yourself and ideas, beliefs that let you get through life without screaming every time your heart beats.
“This is your life. You’ve been asked to trust an old man who comes out of nowhere and says this is this but you can’t touch any of that and it’s not listed in any reality or any multiverse you know. It’s person to person, gut to gut, even with the General vouching for it. It’s the V, and now you’re part of it, one way or the other.”
Rick loosened his right hand to draw his gun.
Said: “What ‘other’?”
“You walk away, that’s OK. Your call. The V life in this multiverse can’t be lived by everyone—and that’s not like a challenge of an elite team like the Marines or the Bureau. It just is. You walk away, you’re the same Bureau star you are and were always going to be.
“You break ORCON, tell anybody—anybody—anything about any of this. … No one will believe you. And the V will know. And that necessitates an Op to contain and control the damage we risked here by reaching out to you.”
A seagull flew overhead.
Rick flat-out told Condor: “Don’t miss.”
“We won’t because we won’t have to. You’re a good man, all the way down.”
“Now what?”
“Time for you to choose what’s right, what’s good,” said Condor. “What are the costs of doing nothing and so being wrong versus the chances of taking a leap of faith to do some good?”
“The road to hell is paved with leaps of faith to do some good.”
“And tarred by being wrong and doing nothing.”
The wind swayed the trees around them.
“I’ve got won’ts,” said Rick. “And that means you and your V—”
“Our V,” said Condor.
“You’ve got don’ts. You better have. “Better know I’ll be locked on those lines.”
“Do’s and don’ts are the nature of the game,” said Condor. “You choose from what you’re given and what you get. Everybody has to. You look out at the world, take a stand, pick a path.”
“So what am I supposed to do if I’m an Actor in your V?”
“Your already sworn duty. Your conscience. Your savvy and true. Your job and calling for the FBI. But more. Beyond. When you can, how you can, steer the fight in the Bureau to beat the Russians and beat them hard. However that can happen.”
“Yeah,” said Rick, “and no.”
Condor blinked.
“You wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble. Brought me out here just to link me.”
“You are so the right pick for this Op, for the V,” said Condor.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of afternoon sunshine.
“We had to be seen together,” he said. “A message had to be sent.”
Rick’s shoes to run or charge pressed white stone slabs by the rippling Reflecting Pool. He controlled his urge to whirl this way and that, looking, searching. Said: “Who?”
“You’ll have his photo and file in your V activation.”
They walked a half dozen steps as the breeze swayed the trees, flowed around the marble statues of the best their country could be—had to be. Condor heard the man beside him rise out of a deep sigh, and they both knew Rick had accepted this new universe.
And Rick said: “What’s the message of me?”
“That we know. That we’re connected. Geared up. That we won’t back down.”
They walked a half dozen steps as the breeze swayed the trees.
“We the V or—”
“They don’t know that much, but we know that they don’t know, and what they do know made them target the unknown. Now they know the unknown is linked to the F … B … I.”
“Shadows pushing shadows.”
Condor smiled: “Crazy, huh?”
CHAMBER THREE
Will You Still Please Me
Silver-haired, blue-eyed Vin held an empty white coffee mug as he stood at the kitchen sink. He looked through the window to the outside world where across the road came a stranger carrying a black cane and walking without a limp.
Satellite radio filled this house inside Washington, DC’s Beltway that Thursday morning in April 2016, savvy rock songs. Vin heard Merle in the dining room whimpering goodbye to the changing of the guard.
Vin looked away from the kitchen window.
Rinsed out the empty white coffee mug.
Left it in the sink.
Looked back out the window.
An unleashed chocolate brown dog loped through his neighborhood.
Black cane man was gone.
Vin filled the tea kettle. Put it on the stove’s burner. Whumped on blue flame.
The man with the black cane didn’t limp.
“Bonnie,” said Vin. “Initiate perimeter check.”
Three screens on the kitchen wall filled with images: Ms. Night Shift driving away. The curved tree line bordering the back yard. Real citizens’ homes seen through the black pole fence and across the two-lane old highway/commuter road. The loping chocolate brown dog.
No black cane man.
Those screens scrolled: Sensors Track No Intrusion.
Vin turned his back on the open door to the dining room. Grabbed the coffee bean jar. Heard shoes hit the wooden floor. Turned. Saw Mr. Day Shift enter the kitchen.
“Hey, Justin. You doing OK?”
“Same-same.” Justin put his black medical bag on the kitchen table. “She seems fine this morning. Moving good. More engaged. A smile. The new meds?”
