by Mark Donovan
After placing the Cessna Citation M2 into the care of the Executive Jet Management Company at the San Jose Airport, Dave rented an SUV to take the team to their hotel. The Hotel El Camino was a non-descript hotel that sat nearly across from the International Regis Hotel and made a perfect location for setting up their mini-lab. Though not part of a large hotel chain, the Hotel El Camino was clean and would serve all of their needs for the next 24 hours. It had an on-site restaurant, high speed internet, and most importantly, wouldn’t attract the interests of any of the business leaders who would be attending the Secretary of Commerce’s meeting at the hotel across the street. It lacked the posh amenities and guest services that these types of people typically demanded. Simply put, it was too pedestrian.
Late Friday night Dan and Ron paid a visit to the International Regis Hotel’s roof. They had located the air conditioning intake duct for the hotel’s Grand Meeting Center, and had affixed two canisters of the nano-dust just inside the air intake duct. Each canister contained a firing squib that could be remotely activated. Once the squibs were activated the canisters would release their contents into the meeting room’s air conditioning system. Within minutes, the odorless and invisible nano-dust would begin to be inhaled and ingested by the occupants inside the meeting room.
After returning to the hotel room at the Hotel El Camino, the three reviewed their plans for the next day before calling it a night. The meeting officially started at 11:00am the next morning, however, there was a morning brunch that would be served for all of the guests before the formal welcoming speech by the Secretary of Commerce. Rumor had it that it was during the welcoming speech that the Secretary of Commerce would raise the subject of the new mileage tax plan being proposed by the administration. It would be pitched as the ultimate solution for solving the world’s global climate change problem, by generating the necessary revenues for both elevating public awareness to the problem, and for providing real eco-friendly energy and public transportation alternatives.
Though the formal business leaders meeting was by invitation only, the brunch was not. Consequently, Dave planned to attend the brunch in the morning as a somewhat uninvited guest. Though NSurv had the most sophisticated surveillance technology ever known to man, there was still value in getting up close and personal with the enemy when you had a chance. In particular, there were a couple of very wealthy businessmen that did not know him, but that he wanted to personally meet.
Chapter 23 (March 8, Saturday 8:30am Pacific Daylight Savings Time)
Dave walked into the International Regis Hotel lobby Saturday morning and asked the concierge where the Business Leaders brunch was occurring. She pointed him to the large adjacent spiral staircase and said the brunch was occurring on the second floor in the Coronado Lounge. Dave proceeded up the stairs marveling at the opulence and grandeur of the hotel. “Who say’s the government doesn’t know how and where to throw a party,” thought Dave as he neared the top step of the staircase.
The Coronado Lounge was a moderately sized open area. Peppered throughout the room was about a dozen large circular tables covered in linen, china and silverware. There were numerous guests of the Secretary of Commerce already milling around the tables and at the buffet food tables. Though it was still early morning, there was an excitement and buzz about the room. The guests were genuinely excited about attending the event as they had heard rumor that there was going to be a major announcement made by the Secretary today.
Dave spied three men sitting at a table at the far end of the lounge. He recognized all three of them, though they did not know him. At least not for the moment. Two were movie producers from Hollywood and the other was the CEO of Hybrid Motors. Dave found it ironic to see the three of them sitting together. What odd bedfellows did they make he thought. He wondered why their conversation seemed so intense and animated. He decided he would pay them a visit after grabbing himself some food from the buffet table.
After filling a bowl with fresh fruit and picking up a container of yogurt, Dave worked his way over to the three gentlemen’s table. All three stopped talking and looked up at him as he stepped up to their table.
“Gentlemen, would you mind if I joined you?” asked Dave looking somewhat hesitantly at them and pausing. “You look like you’re having a rather spirited conversation. I can find another table if you’d prefer.”
“No, no, have a seat,” replied the CEO of Hybrid Motors. “My name is Josh Dingle and I am the CEO of Hybrid Motors. Maybe you can help defend me from these two oafs here from Hollywood. They’re claiming it is the failure of my industry that has prevented the American public from not fully embracing the hybrid automobile, and even more ludicrous, for them not adequately appreciating the real threat to the planet of manmade global climate change.”
“Yes, please sit down and join us,” said one of the Hollywood executives. “Mr. Dingle needs all the help he can get for defending his industries pathetic performance. My name is Kenneth Goldsmith and my competitive colleague here is John Rodgers.”
“Thank you,” replied Dave as he took a seat at the table. “My name is Dave Henson and I run a small security company called NSurv. We’re located in the northwest.”
“Nice to meet you,” replied John Rodgers as he reached out and shook Dave’s hand.
None of the three men showed any real interest in learning more about Dave or NSurv. They just assumed that since he was eating in the lounge with them that he must be another guest attending the Secretary’s Business Leaders meeting later in the day. Moreover, by the fact that he was here in attendance with them, that he must be lock-step with their political views. They were intent on getting back into their conversation and solving all of the ills of the country and the world. It was apparent from their sparring back and forth, that it was the American citizen that was at the root of all the evil in the world.
“I just don’t understand why John Doe American public doesn’t get it” sighed Kenneth Goldsmith. “Don’t they see that they are destroying the world with their opulent life styles? Still driving their gas guzzling cars and trucks, and caring little about the underprivileged in God forsaken countries in Africa, Asia, and South America.”
“Don’t they have a conscience,” replied John Rodgers looking at Dave. “Don’t they realize how lucky they’ve had it, and that it is now time for others around the world to be given the same opportunities to live a better life.”
Dave, not wanting to expose himself too much to the three men, hesitated first before speaking.
“So why do you think it is the American public that doesn’t “get it” and is simply too spoiled?” asked Dave in a somewhat joking tone.
“It’s obvious,” replied Goldsmith laughing cynically. “The average American lacks the proper enlightenment, and to be honest, the raw intelligence to do the right thing. For much of the American public they still have a Neanderthal mindset of constantly consuming and seeking personal gratification.”
“Do you think it’s possible that for many American’s that every day is still a fight for basic survival,” parried Dave. “Particularly over the past decade, do you think that maybe many Americans wake up every morning wondering where they’ll find work and/or how they’ll hold onto their homes? I can personally vouch it’s tough for them. For every job opening we announce at my company there are a thousand people applying for it. How about you Mr. Dingle? Don’t you see a similar interest level in job openings at your company?”
Josh Dingle looked at the three men and slowly nodded yes. “Agreed, the unemployment rate in this country is five times what it used to be,” responded Mr. Dingle. “I wish we could hire more people, however, the American public isn’t buying our product. Fewer sales mean fewer jobs.”
“But instead of blaming the American public for not buying your car, maybe you should take a closer look at your product and its cost,” replied Dave. “We ask the American public to buy an automobile with your hybrid engine onboard that costs nearly doubl
e a traditional gas engine driven car. Where’s the business sense in that? You don’t need to be an accountant to understand this simple fact.”
“It’s not about whether or not it makes business sense,” interjected John Rodgers. “It’s about what is ultimately right for the planet and for all the people of the world. We need to keep our planet healthy and enable other poorer countries to rise up to our country’s standard of living. We have to level the playing field for them to prosper. And for that to happen, our country and its people have to take a step backwards.”
“Agreed,” chimed in Goldsmith. “It’s about the greater good for man’s brother and Earth. Our country needs to be the leader in the effort to reduce global energy consumption. By doing so, we will lower greenhouse gasses that are causing our planet to slowly cook. After we take the lead we can guilt China, India and other big polluters to clean up their act too. ”
Dave looked somewhat incredulously at the men. They were so full of themselves that they couldn’t see the hypocrisy between their own personal lifestyles and the words that they were now dribbling out of their mouths. They called the American public ignorant and stupid. If they could only hear themselves talk. “Guilt China and India into cleaning up their act too.” Maybe they each needed to spend a week in the rural areas of China or India. There was no way the political leaders of those countries were going to be guilted into cleaning up their acts anytime soon. Their people were extremely poor and they weren’t going to jeopardize their political hides by not allowing their own people to rise up from their poverty.
It wasn’t Dave’s goal to suppress the development of other countries. As a matter of fact, he had just the opposite objective, and unlike the three men he was currently talking to, he also did not want to hamstring his own country. His ultimate goal was to enable all countries, and their people, to have the inalienable right to improve their own economies and standard of living. Trying to slow down one country to allow others to catch up was in his mind attempting to play God. But more frightening to him was the fact that the country’s political administration, and some of its corporate allies, like the men he was currently sitting across from, were willing to plot and work against its own people. Particularly disturbing was the fact that they were also protecting their own fortunes in the process.
Dave looked up from the table and saw walking across the room two well-heeled men talking and laughing, and each holding a plate of food. They were working their way over to another empty table. One was Dimitris Barbas, the deca-billionaire and media tycoon, and the other was Jason Evans, an even wealthier southern good-ole boy billionaire who made his fortune on Wall Street over the past four decades. Both were close allies of the current administration so he was not surprised to see them attending the Secretary’s big event today. As a matter of fact, he would have been surprised and very disappointed if they hadn’t shown up. These men were two shrewd characters who pulled a lot of strings in Washington and New York, as well as in other political centers around the world.
For Dave, these two men, and their similar ilk, were at the epicenter of the nation’s economic problems. While they smoothly and prolifically espoused “that everyone in the world deserves the chance for a healthy and productive life,” and that in order to do so the American public needed to take an economic step backwards, they had no apologies for their own constant growth in enormous wealth. They would feign that they lived very simple and humble lifestyles whenever anyone had the rare nerve to challenge them, and would then go on to elaborate how they planned to give away their vast wealth to charity after their deaths, leaving only a very small fraction of their wealth for their children.
Over the years much of the American public had been effectively brain washed into believing these men’s intentions were pure, in major part because their media friends allowed them to get away with it. However, with the dramatic decline in the American quality of life over the past decade, their wholesome folksiness and purity global thinking was beginning to ring a bit hollow with the American public nowadays. And it was this fissure of self-doubt that was beginning to emerge from the American public that Dave and NSurv planned to capitalize on. By exposing the cozy trinity between billionaires like Barbas and Evans, their purchased media assets, and the political pawns they continuously nurtured and defended, Dave was confident that the tides could be turned on them. When the American public saw the ugly and greedy truth of these individuals that NSurv would provide to them, the fissure would rupture into an epic earthquake that would destroy these men and their ilk. But more importantly for the people of this country, return the nation back onto a path of prosperity once again where all would economically rise.
Dave turned his attention back to the table. His three new found friends were still jawboning back and forth with one another. Rodgers had been explaining a new movie his company was releasing soon that was filmed out in the south Pacific and starred a couple of A-list actors. The movie’s plot focused around a small island village that was in jeopardy of being swallowed up by the rising tides of the Pacific Ocean caused by rapid climate change. The other two men seemed quite impressed with it.
Dave looked down at his watch and saw that it was half past nine. Ron and Dan were going to start worrying about him if he didn’t get out of here ASAP.
“Gentlemen, it was a pleasure meeting you but I must get going,” said Dave as he stood up. “I have some emails that I must catch up on and I don’t want to miss the Secretary’s speech.”
“It was a pleasure meeting you,” replied Kenneth Goldsmith. “Yes, you certainly don’t want to miss her speech. I hear it has some very interesting news from the administration.” Rodgers and Dingle echoed Goldsmith’s words and stood up and shook hands with Dave as he departed their table and the lounge.
Chapter 24 (March 8, Saturday 10:30am Pacific Daylight Savings Time)
Dave returned to the room at the Hotel El Camino where Ron and Dan were holed up and making their final preparations for the Secretary’s speech.
“Jeez Dave, we were beginning to get a little worried about you,” commented Ron. “I thought I was going to have to go out and hunt you down. After our little incident with your plane the other day we were not sure if you had maybe been abducted.”
“No, I was just enjoying my breakfast with a few new found friends,” responded Dave. “I also got a chance to see that Dimitris Barbas and Jason Evans, as we expected, were attending today’s Business Leaders meeting.”
“Did you actually get to meet the two of them?” asked Dan.
“No, I was too busy personally enjoying the company of the CEO of Hybrid Motors and two movie producers,” replied Dave. “Talk about sewn from the same cloth. They were all serving up the same political pablum.”
“Well we have pretty much everything in place,” said Ron as he swept his hand across the hotel room. It looked more like a NASA command launch center than it did a hotel room. There were four laptop computers opened up as well as three tablets. In addition, a couple of boxes containing nano-flies were sitting on the desk next to one of the laptops.
While Ron and Dan would remotely manage the deployment of the nanotechnology surveillance sensors from the hotel room, Dave planned to attend the Secretary’s speech in person. If necessary, he’d also provide field reports and guidance back to them through a micro VHF radio that he kept tucked away in his inside suit coat pocket.
They reviewed their plans one last time. Dan would deploy both nano-flies fifteen minutes before the Secretary’s speech and have one positioned facing the Secretary and the other facing the audience. Five minutes into the Secretary’s speech, Ron would fire the squibs to the two canisters that held the nano-dust. Within three minutes the air conditioner intake fans will have disbursed the contents of the two canisters into the conference room. Five minutes later, each occupant in the room will have ingested enough nano-dust to allow Ron to configure the video and audio sensor constructs within each target host. Ten minutes
later the nano-construct sensors would be verified operational in each host.
With their plans and equipment firmly in place, Dave waited ten minutes before the Secretary’s speech before leaving the Hotel El Camino hotel room. He had his “personal” invitation in hand, along with matching identification. Identification that he had specifically had produced back at NSurv the previous week. Fortunately, the President had some friends that had begun to jump ship from him, though admittedly privately and still unbeknownst to the President, but who Dave personally knew.
Chapter 25 (March 8, Saturday 11:30am Pacific Daylight Savings Time)
Dave took a seat towards the back of the conference room. He wanted to be in a position so that he could see all who walked in and to judge their reactions during the Secretary’s welcoming speech. It was a fairly small affair. In total there were seats for about fifty or sixty people, a dozen of which were reserved for the press. The media attendance was expected to be sparse by design. He knew the administration was only floating a test balloon today of their new “Transportation Movement Act”, and that they had purposely played down the significance of the meeting to the news media outlets. But for the few press members who were in attendance, this was going to be their lucky day.
Promptly at 11:30am the Secretary of Commerce, Nancy Devins, stepped into the conference room. After walking down the conference room main aisle and shaking hands with virtually everyone in attendance she proceeded up onto the stage. As she approached the podium everyone enthusiastically applauded her before taking their seats, and as if on cue, quickly quieted themselves.
