by Malcom James
Reporting to Mack Martins was going to be a challenge. Mack was a self-made millionaire from a very successful run with a big New York investment firm, which he parlayed into right-wing media. He had become a leading mouthpiece of the “alt-right” — a newly-branded term describing the loose consortium of various nationalists, white supremacists, and other extremists who had attached themselves to Franks. Martins was highly intelligent, but also belligerent, and was known to enjoy backing very extreme views, sometimes just for the hell of it. Working for a guy like that was not going to be easy. But Walter had assured Eli that as long as he executed his directives, and stayed out of office politics, Martins would not be an issue.
So the money was great, the assignment was historic and legit if slightly sketchy, and the boss was horrible, but manageable. And yet, as he weighed it all out in his analytical manner, none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered, and was entirely unexpected less than an hour ago, was one simple fact: now, instead of quitting, he might have a chance to uncover the rest of the girl’s story.
He wondered whether he was losing his mind. This was not the way he made decisions. But he was going on his gut now. He knew things could get uglier down the line, but in the end, he had to take the chance. He was being inexplicably pulled in this direction. A door was open, and he had to pass through it, if only to get to the other side.
When he returned from his walk, instead of quitting, he accepted the new job as chief data scientist, and told Walter he would spend the next few days off-site, doing research and designing the system. Walter agreed, and was glad to tell Mack and the president the good news. Eli had no clue how to set up the system they wanted, but he knew someone who did.
***
On the ride home, Eli texted Jeremy Hills, his old roommate in Palo Alto. “Hey man, got time to catch up?”
“Yes! Been waiting to hear from you. Got some great news on my end.”
“Me too” replied Eli. “but we need privacy.”
“Now you have my attention.”
“Is there a program you like?”
“MyMask is solid. Handles calls and texts. And it’s free. My handle is JERMEY-WEED-INDEED.”
“Got it. I’ll ping you in a bit.”
“Cheers.”
Eli downloaded the MyMask encrypted messaging app and set up an account before he was even home. Once home, he loaded up Jeremy’s handle and called him through the encrypted connection.
After small talk, Jeremy explained that his startup Moxby, a.k.a the Marijuana Online eXchange Bank, had received $25 million in angel investor funds. The platform was designed to solve the crisis that was flooding California legal pot dealers who were unable to put cash in banks due to federal banking laws, and were sitting on literally tons of physical cash. Moxby was a payment platform that leveraged virtual currencies like Bitcoin to eliminate the cash from legal weed transactions, and Jeremey was convinced it was going to make him rich.
“Holy shit, that’s amazing,” Eli said. He always knew Jeremey was going places, though he assumed it would be in data security, since he had been a bonafide “white hat” hacker in college.
But Jeremey loved to smoke pot, and believed it was the biggest future opportunity, and amazingly, he was the opposite of the cliche’ “stoner developer.” He claimed it allowed him to see code in page-long blocks instead of lines, and only made him more cunning in his business dealings. He could pick up little cues of human nature that otherwise went unnoticed, like a jazz musician playing between the beats of a highly syncopated rhythm. So he was perpetually stoned, but he was so productive that no one could tell the difference. And anyone who thought they could take advantage of him quickly found out they were the ones being played.
Eli told him about the new job and that he wasn’t coming back any time soon. Jermey was fine, they were more than covering his share of the rent on AirBnB. There was a severe shortage of hotel rooms in the area, and no shortage of engineers coming into town for conferences or interviews that needed a place to crash.
Eli didn’t tell him about the video, even though they were safe on MyMask. There was nothing to be gained from it, and he was guarding that information with his life. But he had to tell him about the taping system if he wanted his help. Jermey swore on his mother’s grave he would keep it secret. Jeremy liked secrets, secrets were one of his things, and he could keep them really well.
After a long whistle upon hearing Eli’s project, Jeremy pointed him to online sources for high-quality surveillance gear, and walked him through options for monitoring applications to run on the servers he would need to set up to archive all the conversations. It was a crash course in how to bug an office. Eli thanked him and promised to stay in touch, wishing him luck with Moxby.
Eli decided he owed his father an update, and gave him a ring. It was a short conversation. He explained that he planned to quit, but they offered him a promotion, and the money was going to be impossible to say no to. Ben was surprised the government could pay him that much, however much “a lot more” really was, and Eli just said there were some “back-end considerations” that he had to take into account. He could tell Ben was disappointed again, even though this time he said he understood.
Ben said he was a little distracted, he was having some health issues. He didn’t want to burden Eli with the details, nothing too serious, but he was getting some tests done, and hoped to know more soon. Eli asked him to take it easy and keep him posted, and promised to stay in touch.
He ended by telling his father it was more than just the money, there was something else he was trying to accomplish, a chance he had to take, and someday soon he would explain further. Ben took him at his word.
Eli got right to work, and spent the rest of the night mapping out a schematic and building a budget for the system, and just before midnight, he texted Walter and let him know he was ready to walk through the setup. Walter booked a meeting for the following morning.
***
Eli was in Walter’s office, just he and Walter and Rick Reemus. Mack Martins was running late; apparently something major was going down, but Eli hadn’t heard what it was. Since he was going to be reporting to Martins, and had never spoken with him before, Eli had prepared to go through his proposal in detail. He digested enough information to make it seem as if he knew the stuff backwards and forwards. And he would never divulge that he asked anyone for help, as that warranted immediate termination. So he was ready for the meeting, and then Martins hadn’t shown, until just then.
When he did show, Martins rolled in like a locomotive carrying a load of TNT waiting to blow. He was pissed off, disheveled, with his trademark coffee in one hand and phone in the other, his security badge bouncing off a wrinkled shirt that barely covered his rotund middle. His skin was red and splotchy.
He pushed around Reemus and slammed the door behind him. Eli stood up from his laptop where we has running through a diagram of the system, and offered his hand. Martins shook it brusquely. “Thanks for bringing me on the team,” Eli offered.
“I trust anyone Walter trusts, so I trust you won’t let us down,” Martins replied.
“Absolutely not, sir.”
“Eli was just showing us the layout,” Walter interjected and pointed to the laptop on his desk.
“So to be clear, Eli, it’s the four of us here in this room, plus Ken Miller and the president, who know about this system, that’s it. Six people on all of God’s green earth. Even the president’s family doesn’t know about it, and that’s what he wants. Not because he doesn’t trust them but because he counts on their personal advice and doesn’t want anyone pulling any punches or not speaking their minds just because they’re being recorded. He’s trusting the six of us to not be impacted by that, and tell it to him straight. But it’s just the six of us, is that clear?” Martins asked as he stared into Eli.
“Crystal, sir.” Eli didn’t flinch, and was calm under pressure like usual.
Martins took note of that. Satisfied, he looked down at his phone.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Martins shouted. “Now they’re going to run it tomorrow and want me to comment.”
“Run what?” Reemus asked.
“That Dearborn lied to you and Stevens and the vice president when he said he never spoke to the Russian ambassador during the transition. And therefore you lied to the American people.”
“Fuck, shit, damn it!” Reemus yelled. He wasn’t very impressive when he was angry. Eli took it all in. The “Dearborn” Martins was referring to was national security advisor and former Lt. General Jim Dearborn. He was the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, a highly-decorated solider who for unclear reasons had been fired by the previous Administration.
Dearborn had become a close confidant of Franks during the campaign, and was appointed national security advisor, and now appeared to have a growing web of nebulous ties to foreign countries, including Turkey and Russia, coming out in the news. Reemus and Steven Stevens and the vice president had all told the media multiple times they believed Lt. Gen. Dearborn had not had any improper contacts with the Russians during the campaign, or during the transition. That’s what they said Dearborn told them, and they believed him enough to repeat it on the Sunday talk shows.
Strangely, Lt. Gen. Dearborn seemed to have forgotten that the intel agencies regularly monitored the communications of all foreign government agents in the country, especially ambassadors, and particularly adversaries such as the Russians, and the sources that the Post was about to quote said Dearborn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador had been caught up in that flow of traffic.
To make matters worse, Martins explained, the story the Post was about to run would claim that Dearborn spoke to the Russian ambassador on the very day that the former president had ordered additional sanctions on Russia for interfering in the election, and that his conversation may have even included a suggestion that sanctions could be lifted or changed once Franks was in office.
If this was true, it could be a violation of the Logan Act, a dusty old law still on the books which made it a Federal crime for a private citizen to negotiate with any foreign power that had a dispute with the U.S. Lt. Gen. Dearborn was a private citizen at the time of the call. Being on the transition team did not make it okay.
“We need Stevens to get in front of this,” Martins bellowed. “You guys good here?” he asked. Walter shook his head affirmatively.
“We’ve got it covered. Eli’s done great work.”
“Good, welcome to the team,” Martins barked at Eli, and then he turned and stormed out. There was a long exhale as Martins’ energy left the room. Then Eli looked at Walter.
“Shall I continue?” Walter looked at Reemus, who was pacing as usual, a thin sheen of sweat beading on his forehead once again.
“I need to get to the press team — you guys have this, right?” Reemus asked.
“We got this,” Walter answered again.
Reemus mumbled something inaudible and quickly darted out the door.
Eli looked at Walter.
“What’s the old Chinese curse? May you live in interesting times?” Walter asked rhetorically.
Eli just nodded. “Right. Shall I continue?”
Walter leaned back and expelled a volume of stressed air.
“I think we have what we need,” he said.
Walter opened his desk drawer, and pulled out a blank manilla envelope and slid it across the desk toward Eli.
“Project Entropy. Pull the trigger.”
Eli opened the envelope and saw a thick stack of hundred dollar bills inside.
“Entropy?”
“The president said he wanted a name no one would figure out. I gave it one I knew he wouldn’t figure out.” Eli smiled. “Keep things clean,” Walter said in a low voice. “Convert it to gift cards and have the gear shipped to a UPS store in some other name.”
“Copy that,” Eli said in his best top secret lingo.
“Let me know when you’re ready. And feel free to replace that other laptop.”
Walter turned his attention to his phone, signaling the meeting was over.
8
Sherry
Eli walked out of Walter’s office and straight into a traffic jam of staff headed downstairs. As he followed the group, he saw Natalie in the back, carrying her laptop and notepad, and caught up to her just as she reached the ground level and turned a corner.
“Hey there,” Eli whispered as he got right up behind her shoulder. She turned and saw him and kept walking.
“I heard you were going to quit, and instead you got promoted. Impressive,” she replied as she plowed ahead toward the Brady Press Briefing Room.
“Damn, word travels fast,” he answered as he kept pace.
“No secrets are safe around here,” she added.
“Listen, I want to apologize for the other day. I was overly-aggressive. I shouldn’t have been stalking you like that,” he said as she turned another corner.”
“You mean like you are now?” she replied.
He stopped in his tracks. She sensed it, stopped and turned, and gave him a quick smile.
“Relax, I’m just giving you a hard time. It’s all good.”
Just as quickly her smile faded, and she turned back and kept walking toward the group which was filing into the press secretary’s office in front of the briefing room. But it was just enough to put a spring in his step, and so he kept following her.
“I’m sure I deserve it. But seriously, I wanted to take you up on that offer to talk social media engagement strategy.”
Natalie stopped at the door to Stevens’ office as staffers in front of her went through.
“We have a simple strategy: the president tweets what he wants. I polish it, if he bothers to ask. End of strategy.” She turned and walked into Stevens’ office.
Eli decided right then that following her was not yielding results, and he would change course. He would not follow her any longer, instead he would see if she came to him. He had a feeling she was the kind of woman that needed to be in charge if there was any chance. He had given it a shot twice and come up empty, so the ball was now in her court. He had his pride, after all. He was now the chief data scientist, whatever the hell that meant.
And he was now in some way a spy, on an official assignment, “Project Entropy.” But he was also a double agent on a solo mission, right inside the West Wing. Probably better to have no office relationships, as Walter had advised.
He thought about the girl and his recurring dream, and the focus of his purpose returned. Down the hall, he saw staff entering the back door of the Brady Briefing Room, and decided to slip in the back and observe the fireworks.
***
He stood in the long and narrow James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, clustered in the back with the cameras and klieg lights and staff, next to the minor league reporters who didn’t rate high enough for one of the seats in front. At the podium, the lights blared down on Steven Stevens, who was doing his best to weather a barrage of questions about the breaking report that Gen. Dearborn had lied to Stevens, the vice president and chief of staff about his contacts with the Russians.
Stevens seemed only partially-convincing when he said that he hadn’t read the report personally, and the president didn’t know about any conversations Dearborn may have had with the Russians at the time they occurred, and reiterated the president’s support for his embattled national security adviser, calling him a “good man,” then pivoting to his standard admonishment that you can’t believe everything you read in the press, especially where “unnamed sources” are concerned.
Stevens then went on a long diatribe about leaks coming out of the government, especially the intelligence community, and that the Department of Justice should begin investigating, and that the leaks, not Lt. Gen. Dearborn (a highly decorated officer with a distinguished military career), were
the real threat to national security.
A woman entered and slid right up next to Eli, in front of the standing group. She was quiet, and tried not to attract attention, but that was unavoidable, as she was both late and extremely attractive.
Eli looked at her and she smiled, and he was struck by her piercing green eyes circled with eyeliner. Eli smiled politely back and turned back to Stevens, who was in full swing now. But he couldn’t ignore that she was practically touching him, her arm next to his, and her leg in a tight skirt only inches from his.
He looked sideways at her again, without turning his head, trying to be casual. She had long brown hair with streaks of blond pulled back in a sleek pony tail that emphasized her high cheekbones and full lips. She was in her mid-to-late-forties, and in amazing shape based on the form-fitting business suit and slightly-unbuttoned blouse underneath her jacket, her ID badge hanging on a chain lanyard that lay perfectly between her full cleavage.
She was staring straight ahead, focused on Stevens, and had an audio recorder running in her hand. Eli forced himself to look away and focus on Stevens. He thought he recognized her, but wasn’t sure. She wasn’t a major-network TV anchor, though she had the looks of a highly-paid one.
Stevens was answering a question about whether he felt offended that Dearborn had lied to him, and thus he had lied from that podium to this audience, and America, when he had previously reported that Dearborn had simply called the Russian ambassador to exchange “small pleasantries and holiday greetings” during the transition.
“Well, I would assume that I would not feel any different than you would, if you were told that you were lied to about something of significance, but I don’t know that to be the case,” Stevens said.
“But I just quoted the story that he lied to you, they actually did discuss sanctions, and therefore you lied to us because of him lying to you, so how does that make you feel?” the reporter asked again.
