The LieDeck Revolution: Book 1

by Jim Stark

  He suddenly remembered what Victor had told him—jeeze, it was only a week ago—about how the LieDeck would change a person's personality, would modify the very nature of the beast, and he wondered why he hadn't pressed the inventor on that at the time. I really am losing my edge, he thought again. I really must get those reel-to-reel tapes from him.

  "You ... still there?” asked Helen hesitantly.

  "Yeah, I'm here,” said Randall. “I was just thinking about who might have cut the line off. We'll never know, I suppose. Tell me, did ... he lie?"

  "Uh—no,” said Helen, who was confused by the fact that her boss had just lied about what he'd been thinking about ... and forgotten that she would be able to tell if he lied about anything. “He ... ducked your question about his own faith, so ... either he doesn't believe in God or ... or he thought you were being ... rude, I guess."

  "Well, he asked me first,” said Randall testily, “so it was a fair—"

  "But he's the damned pope!” said Helen. “You don't ask a—"

  "If he does believe in God, he shouldn't hesitate to say so,” snapped Randall, and if he doesn't believe in God, then he's just a big fat good-ol'-boy with a con game that went sour. And if he's behind the WDA, then who the hell knows what he's..."

  There was a brief silence as Randall considered the possibility that the invitation to Rome might have been a trap. Maybe the Pope is with the WDA. Maybe he even approved the attack on the lodge! Or maybe the WDA has hijacked the papacy, as it did the UN.

  "Tighten up my personal security,” he said, “and for the family too."

  "Done,” said Helen.

  SUNDAY, APRIL 27, 2014

  Chapter 56

  CRITICAL CONDITION

  When Cam O'Connor found the outer office door unlocked, he said a little prayer that there were no new disasters waiting for him. It had been a long time since he'd had a day off, and the torrid pace of events was getting to him. His secretary was obviously in ... her purse was on her desk. She had probably gone to the washroom.

  He put his briefcase on the floor and perused the stack of yellow phone messages. Most were unimportant, but one of them caught his complete attention. “Arriving Ottawa International Airport, 11:00 a.m.,” it said. “Meet me. Urgent. I've got your briefcase."

  Apparently the caller had not left a name. Scrawled underneath the words were two question marks and an exclamation mark. Cam looked at his watch. It was 10:15. He'd have to hurry. Since the helicopter was out at the manor, he called down to the Patriot desk to arrange a ride.

  The Sunday traffic was thin. The sight of parked tanks and soldiers in full battle-dress standing on occasional street corners seemed as pointless as it was disturbing. The race riots had stopped as suddenly as they'd begun, all over Canada, and news commentators were speculating about the possibility that martial law might just disappear with equal dispatch.

  The decision to opt for martial law was a prime ministerial career-buster if it went wrong, and Cam wondered where the country would turn for leadership if Godfrey lost his grip on 24 Sussex. There were now more than 40 countries where the governments had imposed martial law, or where it had been imposed by their military leaders with no particular regard for what the government said. Eleven full-fledged civil wars had broken out since his ill-fated trip to the UN, the last he'd heard, and the line between these internal conflicts and clashes between nations was becoming dangerously blurred. It had occurred to him often that the history of the 21st century would be turning out quite differently if Randall hadn't made that snap decision to pass out LieDecks at the UN.

  And now this, he thought as he slumped in the back of the chauffeured Patriot limo, whatever “this” turns out to be. He picked up the secure car phone and had the operator connect him with Bertrand Joly, at RCMP headquarters.

  "Bertrand,” he said. “It's Cam O'Connor here. There's a Dr. Pavay arriving at the OIA at 11:00 a.m., from New York. Can you get him through customs without a fuss? He's a top UN official, and I got a cryptic message to meet him there. I think he may be in danger—probably from the WDA. I'd like to bring him to your office for debriefing."

  Joly said he could handle Canada Customs, but he insisted they meet at Whiteside's office, so as not to scare the man. The whole world knew how the WDA had infiltrated Canada's national police force, and the cloud of suspicion still hung there, still clung, still stung, still stank and still rankled. “In fact, you better not tell your friend that I'm with the RCMP,” he suggested.

  "The guy has a LieDeck,” said Cam. “We can't play that game any more ... forever. It's ... hard to get used to, eh?"

  "Yeah,” said Joly helplessly. “Well, I hope he feels okay about opening up with me there."

  The car pulled in to the airport just before 11:00 a.m., and the Patriot driver went inside the terminal to wait for the Customs officials to deliver Dr. Pavay. Cam called Bertrand again, from the car, and found out that everything was under control. Just after he hung up, a young soldier, still a boy in spite of the menacing rifle, came over to the open window and asked why the vehicle was idling in a no-stopping zone. Cam quietly asked his forbearance, and got it. God, he thought, Canadians are even polite about martial law. This could be a car bomb, for all that kid knows. Christ!

  The military presence was upsetting to Cam. There were soldiers inside and outside the terminal, huge camouflaged trucks in the parking lot, and choppers hovering nearby. This was the first time the boys had been able to play with their toys openly since the so-called War on Terror had started up in 2001, and he found himself hoping that the current crisis would be as bloodless as that Iraq business had been ... for Canada, anyway.

  At 11:20, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees got into the back of the Patriot car and shook the hand of the man he'd met before but never spoken to out loud. “I'm very pleased to see you again, Mr. O'Connor."

  "Welcome to Canada, Dr. Pavay,” said Cam warmly. “What brings you here?"

  "Please,” said Pavay, “I think we should not talk about it until we reach your office."

  As they had done once before, in New York, these two men sat in the backseat of a chauffeured automobile in complete silence. Cam found himself remembering the day that Dr. Pavay had saved his skin. He never did find out how much danger he'd actually been in. If he had called Dr. Pavay to ask, there could have been trouble, especially if the CIA was tied in with the WDA, as many people were openly suggesting now.

  He called ahead to the office and asked that light lunch be brought to the boardroom, for three. He thought of calling Randall, but then decided against it. Sometimes it was his responsibility to make sure the boss wasn't apprised of things ... in order to preserve his “plausible deniability,” as it was called in the trade.

  When Cam led his guest into the boardroom, Joly was already there, waiting, leaning his enormous frame on the oval table as a waiter fussed over the food. “Dr. Pavay,” said Cam, “I'd like you to meet Bertrand Joly, Commissioner of the RCMP. If I hadn't told him about you and asked for his help, you would probably still be at the airport, or in the custody of our defense department.” The two men shook hands.

  After the waiter was shepherded out of the room, Dr. Pavay spoke. “Gentlemen,” he said soberly, “the United Nations has ceased to function, for all intents and purposes. No one speaks to anyone else on matters of substance. Everyone is continuing to play the UN game as if it was real, but nothing gets done."

  He stopped for a sip of tea and a bite of a mini-sandwich—salmon. He knew he had to confide in someone, and most of his acquaintances and friends in the UN were suspect, impotent or plain terrified.

  "For years,” he continued, “most diplomats at the United Nations have been wearing wires. Virtually every face-to-face conversation is routinely recorded. Every embassy tapes its phone calls, incoming and outgoing. No one complains because they all do it. There are legions of bureaucrats who study these tapes around the clock on a daily basis, looking for nuances, open
ings or contradictions. The Cold War paranoia is so pervasive that every tiny advantage must be exploited. These bureaucrats are now re-examining all older tapes, running them by their LieDecks. They're confirming many of their fears, and finding out all kinds of other awful things that they never even suspected."

  Bertrand Joly was starting to get nervous. He knew all about this practice of taping all telephone calls and face-to-face meetings at the UN, and elsewhere. The RCMP had been involved in similar procedures ever since the 1970s, although the Canadian government wasn't entirely aware of it back then. They had not backed away from the practice during the lull between the two Cold Wars, and now that 9/11 had generated enough fear to pass legislation making such practices legal in most democracies, including Canada, it was the duty of the RCMP to review many of its old tapes, using their brand new LieDecks.

  "Please go on,” said the commissioner, and Dr. Pavay obliged.

  "Almost every UN mission has banned verbal communications inside their walls, so everything is written down and then shredded and flushed, or whispered into the ear of the other party while loud music plays on a radio. But that's not the worst of it. The worst part is what they are learning. Many delegations have discovered spies in their midst, and some of these spies are now being held prisoner inside their nations’ missions. It has been rumored that some of them have been killed, their bodies dismembered ... ground up into mush, actually ... and flushed into the sewer system."

  "Is this a rumor?” asked Joly. “Or is there proof?"

  "We don't have proof,” said Dr. Pavay, “but we have reason to believe that it's true. It's hard to get solid proof when most people won't say anything of substance out loud. There's a tiny and clandestine group of international civil servants, including myself, who have been working to find out how much influence this World Democratic Alliance has in the UN. We're risking our lives every time we meet."

  "Jesus Christ,” said Cam.

  "More serious than that,” continued Pavay, “are the political directions that are taking shape. The Chinese and the Russians are now together in their absolute conviction that the capitalist world is engaged in an all-out effort to destroy their ideology once and for all. They have come to the conclusion that the United States is not even governed by the Government of the United States, that there's a shadow government behind the scenes, which really controls things, by which of course they mean the WDA. They believe this shadow government lets Democrats and Republicans play their partisan games, then steps in whenever a critical decision has to be made. These two Communist powers believe that the WDA isn't a new outfit at all, that it has been around, and in control of the U.S. government, ever since the early 1950s. They believe that JFK was assassinated by the WDA because he was preparing to negotiate a formal treaty with the old Soviet Union based on the old McCloy-Zorin Principles, the GCD concept—general and complete disarmament—back in the early 1960s, after the Cuban Missile Crisis. And they're now saying that what happened to John F. Kennedy could happen to President Barker and—"

  "Is there proof of that,” asked Bertrand Joly, “of a conspiracy against Barker?” He made a mental note to ask General George Brampton, who was still locked up at DND headquarters, about that—and Roger Findlay, the defector, now in the Witness Protection Program.

  "Mr. Joly,” said Dr. Pavay, “the notion of ‘proof’ is a pre-LieDeck phenomenon in the world of diplomacy, as I explained. Everything is illusion and rumor now. I'm telling you these things for one reason. Canada is the only country to withdraw from the UN. It is my hope that this means that your country is not involved in the WDA conspiracy and that your country is actually governed by its elected government, in spite of the martial law decree. Is that the case?"

  Commissioner Joly took out his LieDeck and placed it on the table. It was on, and set for the beeper mode. “That is true,” he said deliberately. “I am opposed to the WDA, like yourself, and so is the Prime Minister. I will do everything I can to help you."

  Dr. Pavay was satisfied. “No one trusts Dr. Denthor Gütsch, the Secretary General,” he said. “Almost everyone thinks he's in the WDA, although personally, I'm not so sure. All past decisions of the UN are now inoperative because it seems pretty certain that the whole organization was hijacked by the WDA—maybe as early as the 1960s. Dr. Gütsch won't resign, and he's powerless to influence anything. We are in a state of international paralysis, and nobody wants to face up to it.

  "Worse yet, the Russians now believe that the late Comrade Gorbachev was actually with the WDA when he trashed the Soviet ‘empire’ back in the nineteen eighties, and of course if that's true, it means the American right wing actually had control of the Russian government from nineteen eighty-nine until the putsch in twenty twelve. And a rumor has been spreading that a final showdown between these two economic systems is inevitable, that one side or the other will very shortly find itself under irresistible pressure to launch a preemptive first strike—a nuclear attack—unless fear levels are dramatically reduced."

  "You've ... got to be kidding,” said Joly, which elicited a beep from his LieDeck.

  "I've been told that round-the-clock work has been under way for a week to refurbish and restock the nuclear bomb shelters of both corporate and government leaders in the United States,” said Dr. Pavay. “I've heard that VIPs are withdrawing money from their Swiss bank accounts, in gold, and quietly leaving the cities in all western countries. Some of them have already left for destinations like Australia and New Zealand. I've heard that in Russia—"

  Bertrand Joly's pager beeped. He explained that it might well be something urgent, and asked Dr. Pavay to wait a moment while he left the room to call his office. While he was gone, Pavay poked worriedly at his food, unable to eat. The boardroom faced south, and the Sunday sun was streaming in as if pure contentment had been legislated by the gods.

  "What exactly made you decide to come to Canada?” asked Cam. “I ... suppose you remembered the favor you did for me."

  "Mr. O'Connor, as I said, Canada is the only country to officially withdraw from the UN. If we are to avoid a calamity, someone—and I do hope it will be your government—has to take back the United Nations organization from these despicable WDA fanatics."

  "I thought this WDA business was under control,” said O'Connor. “I'm sure you've heard that we arrested a number of RCMP officers that were involved with the WDA, and that Jeremy Ford, our minister of foreign affairs, was involved, and has disappeared. We even have an American general captured. He was the Canadian handler for the WDA, apparently. I'm surprised that the UN is falling apart. Of course the security you have down there is really pretty lax. My goodness, when I was down there, I couldn't believe what I ... oh ... is everything okay, Bertrand?"

  Bertrand Joly walked back into the boardroom, looking pale. He had his jacket off, and he was sweating heavily. “The United States is now formally under martial law,” he said quietly, “and apparently President Barker has just had a heart attack. He's in critical condition."

  Chapter 57

  IT WASN'T BULLSHIT

  Nine days earlier, on Good Friday, Victor had done the grand tour of the whole Whiteside Technologies complex, including the production studio where they made their own TV and Internet ads. The facility was also used by an amateur theater troupe that had been organized by the union, and during his visit, Victor had been impressed by a videotaped snippet of their last play, a comedy. He hadn't thought about his tour since then, until it popped into his mind after breakfast.

  He had been talking to Winnie about visiting Annette in the hospital, and about the problems that such a visit would pose. On a whim, he called up the make-up artist he had met during his tour, a woman named Martha Worth, and asked her if she could make a disguise for him. It was the only way he figured he could get over to see Annette without being tackled by the media, or shot by fundamentalist zealots, or strung up by others who blamed the recent world turmoil on him.

  He called Patrio
t Command, and they said it would be no problem. Martha, in spite of her rather peripheral role at Whiteside Technologies, had enough security clearance to be told the real story behind his odd request.

  She had laughed heartily over the phone at his dilemma, and suggested he dress up as a policeman. Victor agreed. Cam O'Connor was informed of the plan, and he had a staff person arrange for a real policeman to escort Victor from the office to Annette's room at the Ottawa General—so he wouldn't get busted for impersonating an officer.

  "Put ‘em up—you're under arrest,” said Victor as he poked his head sideways around the studio door.

  "You don't scare me one bit,” said the rotund Martha Worth. “Sit,” she commanded imperially. “Here."

  "Yes ma'am,” he obliged, making a cockeyed face at her back.

  Martha walked behind the make-up chair, plopped a large barber-type bib on him, and pulled the two cords tightly around his neck. “Yes who?” she demanded.

  There was a long mirror that ran the length of the room, with rows of round bulbs across the top and bottom. Victor laughed. Martha was very large, and at the moment, she had something akin to homicide in her playful, fifty-five-year-old eyes. “Yes SIR!” he barked like a Marine-in-the-making.

  Martha gave the cords a good tug—enough to hurt a little, but not offend. “That's a damn sight better,” she growled. Then she loosened the cords and tied the bow. “You had better watch your mouth or I'll make you up to look like me."

  Victor appreciated her humor, and her self-deprecating manner. Here was a “Human two-point-seven,” he gauged in his mind, a fine lady who would flower within the new Human Three culture that he pictured emerging after the LieDeck had done its work for a year or two. But while he admired her character and liked her personality, she was dead right about her appearance. On the traditional looksist scale of one to ten, she was a four, tops, even with her professional skills at make-up and costuming. She would probably be a three first thing in the morning, maybe even a two with her dentures in a drinking glass. Liposuction, plastic surgery and divine intervention would all be needed to convert her physical image into a reasonable facsimile of any Hollywood blueprint. And even then, he pondered.