by Jon Land
“Tell me what you found before my time runs out.”
“Two obscure references, MacNuts, the first being the term ‘Delphi.’ Mean anything to you?”
“Nope.”
“Likewise here. Data banks came up with nada when I ran a search.”
“And the second reference?”
“A name: H. William Carlisle.”
“Never heard of him.”
Belgrade slid a little closer. “Ever hear of the Trilateral Commission?”
“A conspiracy theorist’s dream, wasn’t it?”
“And remains so today,” Belgrade told him. “The commission’s founding dates back to the early seventies, its stated purpose being to foster an enduring partnership between the ruling classes of the United States, Western Europe, and Japan—hence the term ‘trilateral.’”
“Make the world safe for Western business interests, right?”
“In a big way.”
Belgrade went on to provide a capsule summary of the Trilat’s history, beginning with its formation in 1973 by David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski. A series of international and national shocks in the late sixties and early seventies, culminating in the Arab oil embargo and Nixon’s New Economic Policy, led the Western business community to fear for its very survival, or at the very least hegemony. The Trilateral Commission became the means by which the international elite fought back. Together the multinational corporations represented by its members believed they could control or at least affect world policy through the pursuit of a carefully charted dogma. These members saw themselves as custodians more than manipulators, but the difference, in theory as well as action, was little more than semantics.
For men like George Ball, Henry Kissinger, and Jimmy Carter the ideal response was to pursue collective management of world economic affairs. So vague had the line between politics and economics become that their goals could be brought within reach by achieving a broad-based global corporate capitalism. Foremost among these goals was guarding against future international events that might adversely effect the collective. Unilaterally none of the international legs of the Trilat could wield sufficient power to bring about that end. But joined together they had unlimited potential.
“Never did pull it off, though, did they?” Blaine broke in.
“Hey,” retorted Belgrade, “they’re still trying. The commission’s listed in the Manhattan phone book if you want to give them a call and see how things are going.”
“Organizations bent on world domination usually have unpublished numbers.”
“Only if they’re trying to disguise their methods.”
“Which brings us back to Operation Yellow Rose.”
“And H. William Carlisle … .”
“A Trilateral commissioner, no doubt.”
Belgrade half nodded. “And before that the boy wonder of Wall Street, alias Billy the Kid, who had branched out into politics and had become a kingmaker before his thirtieth birthday. Prime force behind Eisenhower’s two terms and counted as his only failure Nixon’s near miss in 1960. He’d made up for that, though, in the ‘68 election, but pulled away from the Dickster after Nixon tried to reinvent the economy in ’71. Ended up as one of the Trilat’s founding members. Then in 1978 he disappeared. Walked out of his mansion one morning and never came back. Suicide was strongly suspected, or even foul play.”
“And Operation Yellow Rose?”
“Like I said, MacNuts, all I’ve got is cross-references to Carlisle and the Delphi, whatever that means. No dates, no prospectus, nothing else.”
“Doesn’t sound like I’m gonna be able to learn much from him under the circumstances,” McCracken said drolly.
Belgrade leaned a little closer and lowered his voice. “Carlisle’s still alive, MacNuts. He never even left D.C.; just changed his address. To the streets.”
“He became a bum?”
“He dropped out. I got limited surveillance files on him dating back to ‘78, but ending in ’90. They must’ve figured why waste the money and gave up on the effort. But if he’s alive today, you can bet he’s still out there. Trick becomes finding him.”
McCracken was already standing up. “I think I’ve got a good idea where to start.”
Lafayette Park fronts the White House on the Pennsylvania Avenue side and is therefore often cluttered with protesters. Today the park was crammed with a relatively quiet lot who were content to hoist their hastily scrawled picket signs the White House’s way. DODD, most of the signs read, a number adding FOR PRESIDENT, and several of these NOW. The message was there for the President to see every time he gazed out his window.
McCracken slid behind the protesters, who were almost eerie in the reserved, singular devotion they brought to their cause. Their seeming lack of emotion underscored their commitment. A few bystanders watched, snapping pictures from up close or taking it all in from a seat on the rim of the park fountain. Several of Washington’s homeless, meanwhile, loitered the day away in a cherished patch of shade atop spread-out blankets, their life’s possessions stored in bags never beyond reach of an outstretched hand.
The numerous benches were deserted for the most part. One set in the sun instead of shade featured a single man sitting comfortably with his arms outstretched on either side of him and legs crossed. The man wore a black overcoat marred by a number of bad stitching jobs and faded at the shoulders and ankles. His white hair and beard were thick and unkempt. A pair of torn canvas luggage totes lay beneath the bench, guarded closely by his legs. As Blaine looked on, the man began twirling the long strands of his beard. McCracken pulled out the picture Hank Belgrade had supplied of H. William Carlisle and tried to match the face to this one. Any resemblance was slight, but after this many years, how could it not be?
Blaine approached from the side so as not to draw any attention. The man didn’t so much as look his way, even when McCracken sat down on the end of the bench. But Blaine noticed him tuck his legs a little tighter around his two packs of belongings.
“Nice view, Mr. Carlisle,” McCracken said, taking a chance. “Of the White House, I mean.”
“My bench,” came the raspy reply, years of wear telling on the voice.
“You come here every day?”
“And no one ever bothers me.” He still hadn’t turned Blaine’s way. “You hear that, sonny? Get on home now. Shoo, shoo, shoo.”
McCracken slid a little closer. A crust of dirt and grime covered the man. The smell was revolting. Blaine cocked his gaze toward the White House.
“You’re already close to home, aren’t you?”
“Belongs to the people, doesn’t it?”
“It’s supposed to. Sometimes a few see it as more theirs than others.”
“Right or wrong?” the man snapped.
“Depends, I guess. Or maybe it doesn’t.”
A pair of red-stained, beaten eyes regarded Blaine for the first time. “You’re damn right it doesn’t. 1600 belongs only to those smart enough to own it.”
“Tell that to them,” said McCracken, gazing toward the stoic supporters of Samuel Jackson Dodd.
The eyes looked at him more closely. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Name’s McCracken.”
“You got a reason to think you know me?”
Blaine didn’t hesitate. “Operation Yellow Rose.”
McCracken stared at the raggedy pile of a man seated next to him, and only then was he sure that it was indeed H. William Carlisle, Billy the Kid himself. The man’s chapped and broken lips pulsed. His eyes narrowed into slits of suspicion.
“Go to hell,” Carlisle said without much resolve.
“You’ve been there for almost twenty years, Mr. Carlisle.”
Carlisle smirked. “I left hell, Mr. What’s-your-name.”
“Why don’t you tell me about it?”
“What makes you want to listen?”
Blaine’s eyes gestured across Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House. “Take a good look, Mr.
Carlisle, because the tenants just might be changing ahead of schedule.”
“What are you saying?”
“Someone dug up Operation Yellow Rose. Unless I miss my guess, it’s somehow connected to a plot to overthrow the government.”
Fear blanketed Carlisle’s grime-encrusted face. He lurched toward Blaine in a sudden motion and reached to grab him at the lapels. Blaine let him, closing his nostrils as best he could against the stench.
“Who are you? What are you?”
“Tell me about Yellow Rose.”
Carlisle let go of Blaine’s jacket and slid away. He spoke distantly with his eyes cast straight before him. “It was all so grand at the outset. What we Trilateralists set out to do to the world, for the world.”
“And yourselves, of course.”
Carlisle swung back toward McCracken. “It’s the same thing, damnit! We offered stability, consistency. At a price.”
“What price?”
The slightest of smiles crossed over the old man’s face. His gaze tilted toward the White House. “A wonderful thing, democracy. But it’s an illusion for the most part, bullshit like everything else. The only governable democracy is limited democracy. Give the people enough to make them think they’ve got what they want. But not everyone back in the seventies was ready to buy into that. We were challenged.”
“We?”
“Trilaterals, elitists, the upper class—call us what you want. Militant protests pounded us from all sides, threatening our attempts to produce stability, threatening the very foundation we were endeavoring to build. Women, Indians, the poor, environmentalists, the militants—especially the militants. Rivals! Everywhere we turned.” Carlisle’s eyes sought out Blaine’s. “Something had to be done. We needed to get the nation’s house in order. I was chosen to lead a subcommittee of the Trilat.”
“To eliminate these rivals, no doubt.”
“To save the country from itself, from anarchy, you ass! Our enemies, the country’s enemies, were singled out. Operation Yellow Rose would have rid the nation of their menace.” Carlisle’s lips quivered. “Jesus Christ … Jesus Christ!” He slid close to Blaine again but stopped short of grasping him. “What you said before, about the overthrow of the government, we knew! We knew, goddamnit, but we didn’t do enough about it! The enemy went underground to wait his turn, to grow strong enough to make his move. We could have stopped what’s going to happen, but the others were too weak.”
“What others?”
“The bulk of the Trilateralists who didn’t have the stomach to carry out real governing. Buried themselves in theories, postulates, and position papers, but weren’t willing to pay the price for carrying out the recommendations the papers contained. Hell, Carter was a Trilateralist, Bush too. Even they wouldn’t listen. They goddamn fucking wouldn’t listen. And now, now!”
Carlisle’s yellowed eyes swung in the direction of the picketers. “Take a look. The enemy’s still there. I come here every day and I watch them. I don’t even know who I’m watching most days. But it’s getting worse, escalating. People are angry, capable of accepting anything that qualifies as change.” Eyes back on Blaine now, as much sad as furious. “And we could have prevented it. We had them all selected. The seeds of discontent plucked away so this could never happen.”
“That’s why you quit, withdrew.”
“I walked out, on the Trilateralists and the world.”
“And what about the Delphi?”
Carlisle’s eyes blazed at Blaine’s abrupt mention of the word, then seemed to sink back in his head. His lips trembled.
“Who are they, Mr. Carlisle?”
The old man reached over suddenly and grasped McCracken’s lapels again. But this time the fury was gone from the move, desperation in its place.
“Stop them,” he urged pleadingly. “You’ve got to stop them.”
“I’ve got only ten days. Not enough time maybe to do it on my own.” Blaine lowered his voice. “I need your help, Mr. Carlisle.”
Carlisle let his grasp on McCracken slip away and slid a trembling hand into the vest pocket of what remained of his three-piece suit. It emerged with a key he pressed into Blaine’s hand.
“Greyhound/Trailways Bus Station,” Carlisle said softly, eyes on the key.
McCracken could feel the grit of rust layered over what had once been smooth steel. “A locker?”
“A grave.”
McCracken didn’t open the locker right away. He loitered about the bus station providing intercity service for an hour before even approaching it. Anyone in the waiting area whose seat faced the bank of lockers was subject to his scrutiny. He was looking for a man or woman who lingered while paying little attention to the boarding announcements. After the hour had passed, he felt confident that no one had the station staked out. Whatever secrets locker 33 had to offer had remained just that.
Still wary, McCracken guided the key into the lock. It resisted and he was careful not to bend it in the process. At last it turned to the right and Blaine pulled the locker door open.
The first thing he saw inside were rumpled clumps of cash, some wrapped in bands, others simply rolled or folded. Big bills for the most part, many of them new, part of a stash William Carlisle must not have made much use of anymore.
Partially concealed by the scattered bills was an old soft leather briefcase. The conditions of the locker had dried and cracked it. The case had a zipper that was open enough to let some of the bulging contents slip out:
Tabs, the tabs of manila folders.
Blaine brought the briefcase from the locker as nonchalantly as he could manage. One of its handles was torn from its stitching, so he placed the case under his arm. He closed and relocked the locker behind him. Then he glided back out into the warm afternoon air.
McCracken had found a spot inside a nearby parking garage for the car Sal Belamo had arranged for him. There, in the darkness broken only by the domelight, Blaine unzipped the briefcase all the way and removed a hefty chunk of its contents.
The first five manila folders Blaine opened contained detailed personal files with photographs included. Three of the names meant something to him. Two didn’t. All five had only one thing in common:
Affixed to the top of the first page in each was a sticker of a yellow rose.
One of the subjects was a college professor. Another was a union organizer. Two more were leaders of the antiwar movement who had organized the march on the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. The fifth was an Indian leader who had led the ’72 protest at Wounded Knee.
All champions of leftist protest movements and all designated enemies of the Trilateral Commission.
In that context the files made a great deal of sense. The Trilateral Commission’s grand scheme allowed no quarter for civil disobedience. The Vietnam war protests had clearly illustrated how public policy could be swayed by left-wing militancy. Carlisle and the other Trilateralists would have learned their lesson from that, opting for a strategy of preemption in the form of Operation Yellow Rose: remove the perpetrators and leaders from the scene before they had a chance to set back the commission’s plans.
Blaine massaged his eyelids and resumed his scan of the stack of personal files. Somewhere in here was what Daniels must have been seeking. Somewhere in here might well be the identities of those behind the coming attempt to topple the government.
Something in the file before him now froze McCracken’s eyes. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said out loud. ‘I’ll be goddamned.“
CHAPTER 9
“Excuse me,” Kristen Kurcell said to the old man sweeping up in front of the building marked GRAND MESA MUNICIPAL OFFICES. “Excuse me, I’m looking for the chief of police’s office.”
The old man kept sweeping and didn’t look up. “Don’t have one.”
“What?”
“Now if you were looking for the sheriff, I might be able to help you.”
“The sheriff, then.”
The old man
looked up. Though his white hair was thin, it covered all his scalp. He had a scraggly beard of the same color. His face was tanned and creased. He wore a thin plaid jacket over a red flannel shirt and khaki trousers.
“You got an appointment?”
“Do I need one?”
“Asked if you had one.”
“No.”
The old man leaned forward against his broom. “Come with me. I’ll see what I can do.”
Kristen followed him through the door of Grand Mesa’s municipal building. She had driven here early Saturday morning after spending Friday night in Denver. She had considered driving out as soon as her plane got in from Washington, but it was after midnight by then and there wouldn’t be anything she could accomplish. Besides, she was exhausted and needed at least a few hours of sleep to settle herself down. Every time she closed her eyes in the airport hotel, though, she saw images of her brother and Paul Gathers of the FBI.
Both were gone. Both had disappeared.
Kristen hadn’t told anyone where she was going. She left a note for the senator that it was personal and she would call in as soon as she could. Until she had some grasp of what was going on, she could not involve anyone else. Paul Gathers had uncovered something and vanished as a result of it. Whatever that something was, it must have been connected to the source of her brother’s frantic, unfinished phone call.
The trail began in Grand Mesa. Grand Mesa might hold the answers.
She had not called ahead in the hope that surprise might be her best ally. Now the scope of the town before her made her question the need for that strategy. Grand Mesa’s town center consisted of one main street, a few cross streets, and a small complement of shops and stores for its two thousand residents. A single gas station doubled as the only choice for automotive repairs. There were two restaurants and a small L-shaped motel. What had been three additional motels lay not far from the center of town. But they were mere shells now, boarded-up relics that hadn’t seen guests in well over a decade by the look of things.
